// 

A 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 
MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


THE  HOUSE  I  LIVE  IN. 


<I  am  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made ! " 


THE 


HOUSE  I  LIVE  IN; 


THE   HUMAN  BODY. 


FOR   THE    USE    OF    FAMILIES    AND   SCHOOLS. 


BY  WM.  A.  ALCOTT,    / 

Author  of  the  Young  Husband,  Young  Wife;  Young  Mother, 
and  Young  Man's  Guide. 


Stereotype  ISftftfon. 


BOSTON: 

GEORGE  W.  LIGHT,  1   CORNIIILL. 

NEW  YORK  :— 126  Fulton  Street. 

1839. 


Entered  according-  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  18S7,  by 
WM.  A.  ALCOTT,  in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  Distriet 
Court  of  Massachusetts. 


Lt  V*|-'lr  ' 

ADVERTISEMENT 

TO     THE     THIRD     EDITION. 

THIS  work  has  now  been  revised,  probably 
for  the  last  time.  Its  author  will  not  probably 
ever  be  able — from  the  nature  of  the  case — 
to  render  it  much  more  perfect.  In  the  pres- 
ent revised  edition,  he  has  freely  availed  him- 
self of  the  suggestions  of  Mr.  Girtin,  a  British 
surgeon,  who  has  recently  prepared  an  edition 
of  the  work  for  the  children  of  both  sexes 
in  the  schools  of  England  ; — some  of  whose 
improvements  are  truly  valuable.  He  has 
also  profited,  as  Tie  trusts,  from  the  sugges- 
tions of  several  medical  gentlemen  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic. 


Mo?€:D67 


6  ADVERTISEMENT. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  impossible 
for  the  author  to  avoid  indulging  the  hope, 
that  if  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Reynolds,  a  distin- 
guished physician  and  surgeon  of  this  city, 
as  expressed  in  a  letter  received  from  him 
sometime  since,  be  correct,  that  the  "  House 
I  live  in"  ought  to  be  studied  not  only 
in  our  week  day  schools,  but  in  bur  Sun- 
day schools,  it  will  so  far  receive  the  confi- 
dence of  teachers  arid  parents,  as  to  render  it 
a  text  book  in  all  our  common  schools,  intro- 
ductory to  the  larger  and  more  costly  works 
of  other  writers. 

i 

BOSTON,  DECEMBER,  1838. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.— GENERAL  REMARKS. 

Size  of  the  house.  Its  age — beauty — cost — rooms — 
occupants — furniture 19 — 26 


CHAPTER  II.— FRAME- WORK  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

The  thigh  bone.  The  leg.  The  knee  pan.  The 
foot.  The  arch  of  the  foot.  Proof  of  contri- 
vance. The  ankle.  .  27—34 


CHAPTER  III.— MATERIAL  OF  THE  FRAME. 

Structure  of  bone.  Shape  of  the  bones.  Descrip- 
tion of  the  bones.  Growth  of  the  bones.  Ves- 
sels of  the  bones.  ....  ...  35—40 


CHAPTER  IV.— SILLS  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

Situation  of  the  hip  bones.     Structure.    The  hip 
joint.    An  abuse.      ,, 41 — 44 


O  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V.— BODY  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

Height.  The  spine.  Each  vertebra.  General 
description.  The  ribs.  The  breast  bone.  The 
collar  bone.  The  shoulder  blade.  .  .  .  45—56 


CHAPTER  VI.— BODY  OF  THE  HOUSE.— CONTINUED. 
The  arms,  or  appendages.     Account  of  the  hand. 
Uses  of  the  hand 57—67 


CHAPTER  VII.— THE  CUPOLA.  ... 

The  cranium.  Bones  of  the  face  and  jaws.  The 
teeth.  Growth  of  the  teeth.  Structure  of  the 
teeth.  Uses  of  the  teeth.  Bones  of  the  ear. 
Bone  of  the  throat 68—82 

CHAPTER  VIII.— THE  HINGES. 

The  hip  joint.  Shoulder  joint.  Elbow  joint.  Liga- 
ments. Capsules.  Wear  of  the  joints.  Syno- 
via. Abuses  of  the  joints 83 — 97 

CHAPTER  IX.— REVIEW. 

Number  of  bones.  Skeletons.  Anatomy.  Physi- 
ology. Uses  of  bones 98—108 

,  .  •&-,    *'i 

CHAPTER  X.— COVERING  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

The  periosteum.  The  muscles.  The  tendons. 
Structure  of  the  muscles.  Action  of  muscles. 
Illustrations.  About  fat.  Reflections.  ,  109—126 


CONTENTS.  y 

CHAPTER    XL—THE    COVERING.— BOARDS    AND 

SHINGLES. 

The  skin.  Coloring  of  the  skin.  Change  of  color. 
The  cuticle.  Oil  glands.  Pores  of  the  skin. 
Cleanliness.  Hair  and  nails 127 — 138 

CHAPTER  XII.— THE  COVERING.— THE  WINDOWS. 

General  remarks.  The  human  eye.  Situation  of 
the  eye.  Muscles  of  the  eye.  Coats  of  the  eye. 
Optic  nerve.  The  tears.  The  eyelids.  The 
eyebrows.  The  eyelashes.  Reflections.  139 — 154 

CHAPTER  XIII.— THE  COVERING.— THE  DOORS. 

Description  of  the  ear,  externally  and  internally. 
Description  of  the  nose.  The  mouth.  .  155—167 

CHAPTER  XIV.— APARTMENTS  AND   FURNITURE. 

General  remarks.  The  external  ear.  Chambers 
of  the  nose.  The  mouth,  internally.  The  sali- 
vary glands.  Passages  to  the  ear.  The  chest. 
Cavity  of  the  lungs.  The  voice.  The  food  pipe. 
The  stomach.  The  intestines.  Gall  bladder,  <fcc. 
The  abdomen.  The  apartment  of  the  circula- 
tion. Chambers  of  the  brain.  Nerves.  168—200 

CHAPTER   XV. — FURNITURE    OF  THE  HOUSE,  AND 
ITS  USES. 

The  blood.  Preparing  the  blood.  Mastication,  or 
chewing.  A  trap  door.  Digestion.  Formation 
of  chyle.  Lac  teals.  Absorbents.  Materials  for 


10  CONTENTS. 

blood.  Nature  of  the  blood.  Nature  of  secre- 
tion. Motion  of  the  heart.  Pulsation.  Force 
of  the  heart.  Capillaries 201—237 

CHAPTER    XVI.— FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.— 
CONTINUED. 

Purifying  the  blood.  The  lungs.  Capacity  of  the 
lungs.  Breathing.  Uses  of  breathing.  Nature 
of  the  air.  Breathing  air  twice.  Ventilation. 
Free  motion  of  the  lungs.  Tight  lacing.  238 — 251 

CHAPTER  XVII.— TEMPERATURE  OF  APARTMENTS. 

Remarks  on  temperature.  Curious  question.  Va- 
riations of  temperature  considered. .  .  .  252 — 258 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


THE  Human  Skeleton.   The  Frame- work  of  the 

House  I  live  in Frontispiece. 

The  Foot,  Leg  and  Thigh  Bones.     The  Pillars 

of  the  House 28 

Patella,  or  Knee  Pan.     .     .    .'    .     •    %  ?    •     •    •  30 
Arch  of  the  Foot.    Mechanical  Powers  of  Stand- 
ing and  Walking 32 

The  Hip  Bones.     Sills  of  the  House 42 

The  Spine ,: 46 

One  of  the  Vertebrae.     ;'  .    * 48 

The  Ribs,  Spine,  Shoulders  and  Arms.    Frame- 
work of  the  Body  of  the  House 53 

The  Shoulder  Blade 56 

The  Hand  and  the  Foot ;  showing  the  beautiful 

mechanism  of  both 60 

The  Skull.     Cupola  of  the  House 68 

The  Cranium  (the  Brain  Case.)        ......  70 

Formation  and  succession  of  the  Teeth 73 

Growth  of  the  Teeth  in  Children 77 

Bones  of  the  Ear 80 

Bone  of  the  Throat 82 

The  Hip  Joint.     Hinges  of  the  House 85 

The  Shoulder  and  Elbow.     Illustration  of  the 

Ball  and  Socket  Joints 87 


12  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The  Knee  and  Foot.  Action  of  the  Ligaments.  .  91 
The  Kneeling  Skeleton.  Illustration  of  Physiology.  103 
The  Biceps  Muscle.  Illustration  of  Tendons  and 

Sinews 116 

The  Arm,  Elbow  and  Hand.     Action  of  Muscles.  120 

The  Eye— its  Nerves  and  Muscles 142 

Optic  Nerve.     Phenomenon  of  sight.      .     .         .  149 
The  Ear — external  and  internal  View,  illustrat- 
ing the  process  of  Hearing 160 

The  Stomach,  its  Situation  and  Functions.       .     .  182 

The  Skull 189 

Vessels  of  the  Kidney 218 

The  Heart,  and  the  Vessels  connected  with  its 

action 226 

Effects  of  Tight  Lacing 250 


PREFACE. 


THE  study  of  the  human  frame  has  usually 
been  confined  to  the  members  of  the  medical 
profession.  But  wherefore  ?  Why  should  not 
a  subject  which  so  nearly  concerns  us  all,  en- 
gage the  attention  of  others,  as  well  as  of 
surgeons  and  physicians  ?  Do  we  not  carry 
about  with  us,  through  life,  a  machine  so 
ingeniously  constructed  that,  in  view  of  it, 
even  an  inspired  writer  exclaimed,  "I  am 
fearfully  and  wonderfully  made  ?  " 

Our  minds,  moreover,  are  the  tenants  of 
bodies  so  constructed  as  to  be  continually 
liable  to  waste,  as  well  as  to  become  disor- 
dered ;  and  yet  we  are  neither  taught  the  way 
to  keep  them  in  order,  nor  to  prevent  them 
from  premature  decay.  These  bodies  act  also 
2 


14  PREFACE. 

upon  our  minds  in  a  wonderful  manner ;  for 
if  anything  in  the  body  is  wrong,  it  affects 
either  our  thoughts  or  our  feelings,  or  both. 

To  keep  the  mind  and  heart  right,  there- 
fore, we  should  know  how  to  keep  the  body 
right.  Who  understands  this?  What  per- 
sons, except  medical  men,  as  I  said  before, 
ever  study  their  bodies?  Is  it  not  strange 
that  knowledge  of  such  vast  importance  should 
have  been  so  long  overlooked,  and  practically 
disregarded  ? 

There  are  reasons,  however,  for  all  this 
neglect.  Many  connect  with  the  thoughts 
of  studying  the  human  frame,  the  idea  of 
skeletons,  dead  bodies,  knives,  dissections,  dis- 
interments,  and  violent  deaths.  No  wonder 
the  mind  should  revolt  at  so  horrible  a  picture. 
No  wonder  that  Anatomy  and  Physiology — 
for  these  are  the  hard  names  given  to  the 
study  of  the  body  and  the  laws  of  the  body — 
should  be  neglected  and  despised,  if  these 
things  are  inseparable  from  it ! 


PREFACE.  15 

But  they  are  not  so.  Both  anatomy  and 
physiology  may  be  studied  with  some  advan- 
tage, without  the  dissecting  knife.  Much 
may  be  learned  with  the  aid  of  nothing  but  a 
book  and  a  few  good  engravings ;  and  in  fact 
without  either  of  these.  The  body  itself  may 
be  studied ;  this  is  always  at  hand.  And  if 
dissections  are  even  made,  portions  of  birds  or 
quadrupeds  may  be  obtained,  which  will  partly 
answer  the  purpose.  The  heart,  for  example, 
of  most  of  the  comrnon  domestic  animals, 
nearly  resembles  the  heart  of  man,  and  would 
answer  every  purpose.  All  good  citizens  dis- 
approve of  every  form  of  disrespect  for  the 
bodies  of  the  dead  ;  and  above  all,  the  barba- 
rous practice  of  robbing  graves. 

Still,  this  subject  must  be  studied.  Man,  as 
has  just  been  observed,  has  a  body  as  well  as 
a  mind.  A  system  of  education  which  over- 
looks either  is  essentially  defective. 

It  was  in  this  view  that  the  author  com- 
menced a  series  of  essays  on  anatomy  and 


16  PREFACE. 

physiology,  in  the  first  volume  of  the  Juvenile 
Rambler.  They  were  continued  into  Vol.  2 
of  the  same  periodical,  and  also  into  Vols.  2, 
3  and  4  of  Parley's  Magazine.  Many  of 
them  were  written  under  the  title  of  the 
"  House  I  live  in."  The  favorable  reception 
they  met  with,  and  the  solicitations  of  parents 
and  teachers,  together  with  an  increasing  con- 
viction of  the  absolute  necessity  of  something 
of  the  kind,  have  induced  him  to  go  further, 
and  prepare  a  work  for  families  and  schools. 

But  he  wishes  it  to  be  distinctly  understood, 
that  he  does  not  intend  this  as  a  substitute  for 
any  known  work.  The  information  which  it 
gives,  in  anatomy  and  physiology,  would,  in- 
deed, be  of  great  value,  without  the  study  of 
other  works.  But  it  is  chiefly  intended  to 
introduce  the  young  to  such  works  as  Smith's 
"  Class  Book  of  Anatomy,"  and  Hayward's 
"  Outlines  of  Physiology  ;  "  and  if  its  adop- 
tion in  part  as  a  reading  book,  and  in  part  as 
a  class  book,  in  our  schools,  should  smooth  or 


PREFACE.  17 

pave  the  way  to  the  use  of  those  more  com- 
plete works,  the  writer  would  not  regret  its 
publication. 

He  looks  forward  to  the  period  as  not  very 
distant,  when  a  knowledge  of  the  physical 
nature  of  man  will  be  as  generally  taught  to 
every  individual  of  the  whole  race,  as  arith- 
metic and  geography  now  are  ;  and  will  be 
as  universally  found  in  our  schools.  And  he 
cannot  but  fondly  hope  to  remove  a  little  of 
the  repugnance  which  many  feel  to  this  study, 
by  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  he  has  here 
presented  it. 

The  general  plan  of  the  work  is  something 
more  than  mere  theory.  It  has  been  tested 
by  experiment,  both  in  school  and  elsewhere  ; 
and  with  the  most  complete  success. 

There  is  one  more  hope  that  the  author 
indulges,  in  the  publication  of  this  volume. 
It  is,  that  it  will  have  a  good  tendency  on 
morals.  Still  more  than  all  this.  Besides 
having  the  favorable  tendency  which  physi- 


18  PREFACE. 

ology  must  have  on  human  happiness  gener- 
ally, the  writer  believes  that  no  branch  of 
natural  science  is  more  likely  to  induce  us  to 
look  "  through  Nature  up  to  Nature's  God." 

BOSTON,  JANUARY,  1837. 


THE  HOUSE  I   LIVE   IN. 


CHAPTER  I. 


GENERAL  REMARKS. 

Size  of  the  house.     Its  age — beauty — cost — rooms — 
occupants^— furniture. 

"  THE  house  I  live  in  J>  is  a  curious  build- 
ing ;  one  of  the  most  curious  in  the  world. 
Not  that  it  is  the  largest,  or  the  oldest,  or  the 
most  beautiful,  or  the  most  costly  ;  or  that  it 
has  the  greatest  number  of  rooms  or  occupants, 
or  the  most  fashionable  furniture.  Still  it  is 
one  of  the  most  wonderful  buildings  in  the 
world,  on  account  of  the  skill  and  wisdom  ol 
the  great  Master  Workman  who  planned  it. 
You  can  hardly  view  it  closely  in  any  part, 
without  being  struck  with  the  wisdom  which 
is  shown,  or  without  having  your  minds  ele- 


20  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

vated  and  improved  by  the  contemplation  of 
that  Divine  Goodness,  which  has  so  admirably 
adapted  everything  to  the  purpose  it  was  in- 
tended to  fulfil. 

SIZE  OF  THE  HOUSE. — I  said  that  it  is  not 
the  largest  building  in  the  world.  Very  far 
indeed  from  that.  There  are  very  many 
buildings — castles  and  palaces,  churches  and 
cathedrals,  mansions  and  factories — which  are 
thousands,  tens  of  thousands,  nay,  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  times  larger  than  the  House  I 
live  in ;  indeed  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  in 
any  country,  barbarous  or  civilized,  there  is  to 
be  found  a  single  human  dwelling  place,  from 
the  hut  of  the  savage  to  the  palace  of  the 
king,  but  what  occupies  a  far  greater  space 
than  the  house  I  am  about  to  describe. 

The  mosque  of  Omar,  at  Jerusalem,  for 
example,  which,  according  to  travellers,  is 
1489  feet  (more  than  a  quarter  of  a  mile)  long, 
and  995  feet  wide,  covering  forty-one  acres, 
is  of  course  thousands  of  times  as  large.  The 
palace  and  church  of  the  Escurial  in  Madrid,  in 
Spain,  is  nearly  a  mile  in  circumference.  The 
great  tobacco  factory  at  Seville,  in  Spain,  covers 


GENERAL    REMARKS.  21 

about  seventeen  acres,  and  is  also  thousands 
of  times  as  large  as  my  house  is.  So  are  also 
St.  Peter's  Church  at  Rome,  and  St.  Paul's  in 
London  ;  the  latter  of  which  covers  six  acres. 
Even  the  City  Hall  in  New  York,  which  is 
only  216  feet  long  and  105  broad,  is  many 
thousand  times  as  large.  In  truth,  the  house 
I  live  in  is  of  very  limited  extent  in  any  direc- 
tion ;  for  though  it  may  be  said  to  have  two 
stories,  and  a  cupola  or  dome,  yet  the  whole 
seldom  towers  beyond  the  height  of  six  feet. 

ITS  AGE.— -It  is  not  the  oldest  building  in 
the  world.  The  pyramids  of  Egypt,  erected 
3000  years  ago,  are  proud  monuments  of  the 
architectural  skill  of  the  designers  ;  and  even 
now  seem  to  defy  the  hand  of  time.  The 
sepulchral  monuments  lately  discovered  in 
Etruria  ;  the  splendid  temples  and  other  sa- 
cred edifices  at  Athens  ;  the  gigantic  ruins  of 
Palmyra,  Luxor  and  Karnac  ;  the  immense 
and  curiously  constructed  caverns  of  Ele- 
phanta,  can  all  boast  a  high  antiquity.  Many 
churches  and  palaces,  though  with  far  less  pre- 
tensions to  age  than  the  structures  I  have  named, 
have  existed  several  hundred  years. 


22  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

A  traveller  assures  me  that  he  once  saw  a 
house  in  Nantes,  in  France,  in  which  Julius 
Caesar  slept  at  the  time  of  his  passing  through 
France  to  invade  Great  Britain  ;  which  you 
know  is  almost  two  thousand  years  ago. 
Buildings  of  brick  and  stone  several  hundred 
years  old  are  very  common  in  Europe.  They 
are,  of  course,  less  so  here,  because  it  is  little 
more  than  200  years  since  our  ancestors  came 
over  here,  and  began  to  drive  away  the  sav- 
ages and  erect  dwellings.  Yet  even  here  you 
will  occasionally  find  a  house  nearly  200  years 
old.  There  are  some  wooden  houses,  both  in 
Boston  and  its  vicinity,  which  are  almost  200 
years  old.  But  the  building  about  which  I 
am  going  to  tell  you,  has  not  yet  stood  half  a 
century ;  and  with  the  utmost  attention  and 
care  could  not  probably  be  made  to  last  a  cen- 
tury. 

ITS  BEAUTY. — The  house  I  live  in  is  not 
the  most  beautiful  in  the  world.  It  is  not 
indeed  without  beauty  ;  but  it  would  poorly 
compare  with  the  elegant  temple  of  Solomon, 
in  the  days  of  its  greatest  glory ;  or  even  with 
the  Arcade  of  Providence,  the  Massachusetts 


GENERAL    REMARKS.  23 

Hospital  in  Boston,  or  the  Capitol  at  Washing- 
ton. Some,  it  is  true,  undertake  to  say  it  is  a 
great  deal  more  beautiful  than  any  of  these  ; 
but  on  this  point  I  leave  you  to  form  your  own 
opinion,  after  I  have  told  you  more  about  it. 

ITS  EXPENSE. — Nor  is  it  the  most  costly* 
Many  a  building  has  cost  its  millions  of  dollars. 
The  Capitol  at  Washington  cost  two  millions 
of  dollars,  and  even  the  City  Hall  in  New 
York  half  a  million.  The  Seville  tobacco 
factory,  in  Spain,  cost  six  millions.  Some 
European  palaces,  cathedrals  and  other  edi- 
fices, probably  cost  a  dozen  or  twenty  mil- 
lions. The  house  I  live  in,  meanwhile,  may 
be  said  to  have  scarcely  cost  me  anything  ;  for 
it  was  found  ready  to  my  hand.  The  neces- 
sary expenses  of  keeping  it  in  repair  are  but 
small,  when  the  simple  intentions  of  nature 
respecting  it  are  all  fulfilled. 

ROOMS. — Nor  does  it  contain  the  greatest 
number  of  rooms  that  I  have  ever  known  in 
a  building,  though  it  may  be  said  to  contain  a 
large  number  for  so  small  a  place.  Perhaps 
there  may  be  fifteen  or  twenty.  Whereas 


24  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

* 

many  public  buildings  contain  a  number  much 
greater — sometimes  several  hundred. 

OCCUPANTS. — As  to  the  number  of  occu- 
pants, it  will  hardly  bear  a  comparison  with 
any  known  building  ;  for,  like  some  of  the  huts 
of  the  rude  tribes  of  New  Holland,  it  never 
accommodates  more  than  one  person — and 
that  one  is  myself. 

But  even  with  the  rude  huts  of  the  New 
Hollanders,  the  comparison,  as  I  have  said, 
will  not  hold  good.  They  are  made  of  the 
bark  of  a  single  tree,  bent  in  the  middle,  and 
placed  with  its  two  ends  on  the  ground.  When 
one  of  the  natives  has  taken  up  his  abode  in 
a  hut  of  this  kind  as  long  as  he  has  seen  fit,  he 
leaves  it.  He  journeys  to  another  place,  and 
builds  a  new  one,  and'  the  old  hut  is  taken  pos- 
session of  by  any  who  choose.  Whereas  I 
always  carry  my  house  with  me  wherever  I  go. 
In  all  countries,  in  all  climates,  in  all  seasons, 
my  house  is  ready  for  my  use.  The  house  I 
live  in  is  good  for  nothing  at  all,  however,  for 
anyone  but  myself;  arid  when  I  leave  it,  it 
will  immediately  fall  into  decay. 


GENERAL    REMARKS.  25 

FURNITURE. — The  furniture  of  the  house 
I  live  in  is  not  of  the  most  fashionable  appear- 
ance. Of  this  the  reader  can  judge  for  him- 
self, when  he  understands  that  it  has  been  the 
same  in  kind  for  nearly  forty  years. 

The  fashions,  you  know,  in  everything,  are 
continually  varying  ;  and  what  appears  well 
now,  will,  by  another  year,  be  considered 
awkward  or  deformed.  But  the  furniture  of 
•  my  house,  being  from  the  very  first  most  admi- 
rably adapted  to  the  wants  of  its  occupant, 
does  not  require,  from  year  to  year,  the  slight- 
est attention,  on  my  part ;  that  is,  by  any 
direct  effort. 

In  Siam,  the  houses  are  frequently  built  on 
posts  or  pillars.  This  is  because  the  country 
is  low,  and  apt  lo  be  overflowed  every  year 
by  the  rivers ;  and  to  build  on  high  posts  is  the 
only  way  to  secure  themselves  against  these 
floods.  In  Venice  also,  and  Amsterdam,  the 
buildings  are  erected  upon  piles,  to  elevate  and 
protect  them  from  the  inroads  of  the  sea.  My 
house,  as  you  will  see  hereafter,  stands  on 
pillars,  but  these  pillars  were  made  for  motion, 
that  the  building  may  be  transported  to  any 
place  desired.  Whereas  an  Amsterdam  or 
3 


26  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Venetian  house  cannot  be  removed  at  all ;  nor 
a  Siamese  house  without  considerable  injury. 

The  house  I  live  in  is,  after  all,  most  re- 
markable for  its  convenience.  Nothing  could 
possibly  so  well  answer  my  purpose.  I  have 
already  told  you  that  it  would  be  good  for 
nothing  for  any  other  person.  Your  house, 
young  reader,  may  be  as  beautiful,  as  curi- 
ous, as  large,  and  even  as  commodious  for  you, 
as  mine  is  for  me  ;  but  it  would  never  answer 
my  purpose  at  all,  even  if  I  had  it  in  my 
power  to  exchange  with  you. 

In  the  progress  of  the  following  chapters,  I 
shall  give  you  many  more  particulars.  I  shall 
describe  to  you,  in  the  best  way  I  can,  the 

FRAME,  the    COVERING,  the    APARTMENTS,  the 

FURNITURE  and  the  EMPLOYMENTS  of  the 
House  I  live  in ;  and  shall  give  you,  briefly, 
an  account  of  the  structure,  uses  and  abuses 
of  each.  I  have  endeavored  to  avoid  difficult 
words,  as  much  as  possible  ;  and  of  the  few 
which  occur,  I  have  given  a  brief  explanation 
at  the  end  of  the  volume. 


CHAPTER  II. 


FRAME- WORK  OF  THE   HOUSE. 

The  thigh  bone.  The  leg.  The  knee  pan.  The 
foot.  The  arch  of  the  foot.  Proof  of  contrivance. 
The  ankle. 

A  SINGLE  glance  at  the  picture  which  you 
see  opposite  the  title  page,  will  at  once  un- 
ravel all  the  mysteries  of  the  last  chapter. 
You  will  discover  that  the  house  I  live  in  is 
my  body — the  present  habitation  of  my  im- 
mortal spirit.  You  will  also  discover  that  the 
frame-work  of  my  house  consists  entirely  of 
bones.  These  I  am  now  going  on  to  de- 
scribe. 

THE  PILLARS. — The  pillars  are  the  bones 
of  the  lower  extremities.  Standing  by  them- 
selves^ as  they  do  in  the  next  engraving,  and 
detached  from  all  their  connections,  you  will 
be  apt  to  think  they  are  not  well  proportioned  ; 
but  as  you  see  them  with  the  rest  of  the 
building,  they  will  appear  very  differently. 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


I  spoke  of  the  lower  extremities  of  the 
human  frame.  These  are  commonly  reck- 
oned in  three  divisions ;  the  thigh,  the  leg,  and 
the  foot.  Besides  these,  there  is  the  knee  pan 
or  patella.  Each  thigh  has  one  bone,  each 
leg  two,  and  each  foot  twenty-six. 


FRAME-WORK    OF    THE    HOUSE.  29 

Besides  these — fifty-eight  in  the  whole  in 
both  legs — and  the  two  patellas,  there  are  in 
some  people,  at  the  largest  joint  of  the  great 
toe,  one  or  two  small  bones,  having  a  slight 
resemblance  to  the  knee  pan  or  patella.  They 
are  called  sesamoid  bones,  because  they  have 
been  supposed  to  resemble  the  seeds  of  the 
sesamum,  a  wild  eastern  plant. 

THE  THIGH  BONE. — The  bone  of  the 
thigh  is  called  the  femur.  It  is  the  longest 
bone  in  the  whole  human  frame.  At  its  upper 
end,  where  it  is  connected  with  the  hip  bone, 
is  a  round  knob  or  head.  This  head  fits  into 
a  corresponding  hollow  or  cavity  of  that  bone, 
and  is  fastened  there  in  a  way  which  will  be 
described  in  another  place.  These  round 
heads  do  not  appear  quite  round  enough  in  the 
opposite  engraving  ;  but  in  all  other  respects 
it  represents  these  important  parts  of  the  hu- 
man frame  quite  correctly. 

THE  LEG. — The  lower  end  of  the  femur 

joins  with,  or  rather  rests  upon,  the  large  bone 

of  the  leg.     The  leg  below  the  knee  consists 

of  two  bones.     The  tibia  (so  called  because 

3* 


30  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

it  resembles  a  tube  or  pipe,  or  as  some  have 
imagined,  a  hautboy)  is  much  the  largest. 
The  other  is  called  the  fibula.  They  are  so 
placed  that  the  fibula  is  on  the  outside. 
Where  the  tibia  and  the  femur  meet,  they 
form  what  is  called  a  hinge  joint,  which 
means  a  joint  that  will  only  allow  of  motion 
backwards  and  forwards  in  one  direction,  like  a 
door  on  hinges.  But  more  of  this  hereafter. 

THE  KNEE  PAN. — On  the  fore  part  of 
this  lower  extremity,  where  the  femur  meets 
the  tibia  and  fibula,  to  form  the  knee  joint,  the 
patella  or  knee  pan  is  placed.  This  is  a  round 
flat  bone,  not  joined  to  the  other  bones,  but 
lying  very  closely  on  them,  and  kept  in  its 
place  by  what  are  called  tendons.  You  may 
see  a  little  how  this  bone  looks  in  the  last 
engraving  ;  but  I  here  present  you  with  a  pic- 
ture of  it,  on  a  larger  scale. 


Although  this  bone  might  seem  at  first  view 
almost  useless,  yet  it  serves  many  important 


FRAME-WORK    OF    THE    HOUSE.  31 

purposes  ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a  bone  in  the 
body  but  might  be  spared  as  well  if  not  better 
than  this. 

THE  FOOT. — The  bones  of  the  foot  have 
a  general  resemblance  to  the  bones  of  the 
hand,  which  I  shall  describe  fully  in  another 
place.  But  they  differ  from  those  of  the 
hand  in  several  important  particulars. 

The  foot  is  composed  of  twenty-six  little 
bones,  strongly  fastened  together  by  gristle,  or 
ligaments.  These  ligaments  yield,  when  we 
bear  upon  the  foot,  just  enough  to  have  it 
conform  to  the  surfaces  on  which  we  tread. 
If  the  foot  consisted  of  one  solid  bone,  it 
would  not  yield  or  spring  at  all ;  and  it  would 
be  liable  to  be  broken  when  we  jump  or  fall 
on  our  feet.  Think  how  clumsy  a  wooden 
foot  would  be  !  And  one  of  solid  bone  would 
be  almost  equally  so. 

ARCH  OF  THE  FOOT. — The  arching  of  the 
foot  is  a  singular  contrivance.  It  is,  really, 
very  much  like  the  arch  of  a  bridge  upon  its 
two  abutments.  I  will  explain  the  matter. 


32  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


In  the  above  engraving,  the  foot  is  not 
placed  flat  down  upon  the  ground,  but  in  the 
position  which  it  has  when  we  walk,  and  are 
just  setting  it  down.  Then,  as  may  be  seen 
by  the  two  lines  drawn,  it  descends  in  a  semi- 
circle from  the  point  of  the  heel.  The  low- 
est extremity  of  the  heel  and  the  ball  of  the 
great  toe  may  be  considered  as  the  abutments 
of  the  arch,  while  the  bones  of  the  instep 
form  the  arch  itself. 

You  may  easily  perceive,  by  lashing  a  strip 
of  wood  to  the  bottom  of  the  foot,  how  awk- 
wardly we  should  feel  if  we  were  obliged  to 
walk  with  a  flat  foot.  It  is  quite  evident 
there  would  be  no  spring  when  we  tread  on 
it.  We  could  hardly  walk,  run,  leap  or  swirn 
at  all. 

One  thing  more.  The  heel  is  not  exactly 
under  the  leg,  but  runs  back  like  a  spur,  and 


FRAME-WORK    OF    THE    HOUSE.  33 

is  fastened  to  the  main  body  of  the  foot  by  a 
very  firm  but  springy  (elastic)  joint.  On  this 
account,  when  we  walk,  (the  heel  being  thus 
formed  like  a  spur,  and  having  a  great  deal 
of  elasticity,)  we  put  it  down  first,  and  the 
whole  weight  of  the  body  does  not  come 
down  with  a  jolt,  as  it  otherwise  would  do, 
but  more  gently. 

ITS  CONTRIVANCE. — Taken  altogether,  the 
foot  is  a  most  admirable  contrivance.  It  is, 
indeed,  arched  loth  ways ;  from  the  toes  to 
the  heel,  and  from  side  to  side.  It  will  help 
you  to  get  a  clearer  idea  of  this  arched  struc- 
ture, to  step  into  the  water  with  your  bare 
foot,  and  then  step  immediately  upon  a  dry 
floor,  and  find  what  sort  of  a  track  it  will 
make.  You  see  only  a  spot  for  the  heel,  and 
several  spots  for  the  toes  and  the  parts  of  the 
foot  near  them.  The  middle  part  of  the  foot 
will  scarcely  touch  the  floor  at  all.  There  is, 
however,  a  difference  in  the  form  of  feet.  Some 
persons  have  flatter  feet  than  others.  All 
persons,  however,  have  the  soles  of  their  feet 
apparently  less  arched  than  is  shown  by  the 
engraving,  on  account  of  the  muscles,  tendons, 


34  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

blood  vessels,  &c.,  which  in  a  great  degree 
fill  up  the  hollow  in  the  real  foot. 

I  have  said  that  this  part  of  the  human 
form  is  most  admirably  contrived  ;  and  it  is  so. 
When  we  examine  the  feet  of  the  camel,  the 
elephant,  the  horse,  the  dog,  the  cat  or  the  bird, 
we  are  struck  with  the  wisdom  of  the  Crea- 
tor, in  adapting  them  to  the  kind  of  life  they 
are  destined  to  lead.  The  foot  of  the  camel 
is  so  made,  that  it  does  not  sink  deeply  into 
the  sand  on  which  it  travels.  The  horse 
could  not  travel  much  in  the  deep  sands  of 
Arabia,  his  foot  being  more  elastic,  and  made 
for  firmer  ground.  It  is,  indeed,  so  very 
elastic,  that  those  who  shoe  the  horse  find  it 
necessary  to  make  the  shoe  as  narrow  round 
the  edge  as  possible,  so  that  the  iron  may  not 
press  upon  the  softer  and  more  elastic  part  of 
the  foot,  inside  of  the  hoof. 

THE  ANKLE. — Between  the  lower  ends 
of  the  tibia  and  fibula,  and  the  bones  of  the 
foot,  are  seven  short  bones,  not  unlike  those 
of  the  wrist  in  shape,  but  rather  larger.  Of 
these  you  will  get  a  better  idea,  when  I  de- 
scribe the  bones  of  the  upper  extremities. 


CHAPTER  III. 


MATERIAL  OF  THE   FRAME. 

Structure  of  bone.  Shape  of  the  bones.  Description 
of  the  bones.  Growth  of  the  bones.  Vessels  of  the 
bones. 

You  have  already  seen  that  the  frame-work 
of  the  house  I  live  in  consists  chiefly  of 
bone.  Before  we  go  any  farther,  I  ought  to 
tell  you  how  bones  are  constructed,  and  of 
what  substances  they  are  formed. 

STRUCTURE  OF  BONE. — Sticks  of  timber 
are  evidently  full  of  little  holes  ;  for  if  you 
take  a  piece  of  wood,  of  several  kinds  which  I 
could  mention,  and  placing  your  mouth  at  one 
extremity,  blow  hard,  you  can  force  a  little  air 
through  it,  from  end  to  end.  This  shows  that 
there  are  little  holes  or  tubes  running  length- 
wise, all  the  way  through.  If  you  could  blow 
hard  enough,  you  might  force  air  through  any 
kind  of  wood.  The  philosopher  and  chemist, 


36  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

by  the  aid  of  machinery,  will  force  water  and 
even  quicksilver  through  the  pores  of  almost 
any  sort  of  wood. 

But  you  cannot  blow  through  any  of  the 
timbers  of  the  house  I  live  in.  This  shows 
that  the  internal  structure  of  bone,  though  in 
appearance  somewhat  similar,  is  very  different 
from  that  of  wood.  I  will  endeavor  to  show 
you  wherein  it  is  different. 

SHAPE  OF  BONES. — Bones  are  of  three 
kinds  ; — long  bones,  broad  or  flat  bones,  and 
round  bones.  The  long  bones  have  a  hollow 
through  them,  containing  marrow  or  pith  ;  but 
the  other  two  sorts  of  bones  have  no  such 
cavity  or  hollow.  They  have,  however,  a  great 
many  little  holes  or  cells  in  the  inside.  Some 
of  them  look,  when  broken,  almost  like  sponge 
or  honey-comb.  Some  of  the  long  bones, 
besides  being  hollow,  are  also  spongy.  They 
are  generally  largest  and  most  spongy  at  the 
ends,  and  smaller  and  more  firm  at  the  middle, 
with  fewer  of  the  little  cells. 

All  the  bones  in  the  body  are  very  hard  on 
the  outside.  Perhaps  the  teeth  are  most  so. 
The  inside  of  the  teeth  is  not  much  harder 


MATERIAL    OF    THE    FRAME.  37 

than  other  bones  ;  but  the  outside  is  coated 
with  a  substance  called  enamel,  which  is  very 
hard  indeed. 

DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  BONES. — You  have 
already  been  told  that  the  long  round  bones, 
such  as  the  humerus  and  the  femur,  are  hollow, 
and  have  marrow  in  them.  This  marrow  nearly 
or  quite  fills  up  the  hollow.*  There  is  a  very 
fine,  thin  membrane  that  lines  the  hollow,  and 
also  runs  in  among  the  marrow.  The  same 
sort  of  membrane  lines  also  the  little  cells  in 
the  spongy  bones.  These  cells  have  a  small 
quantity  of  liquid  in  them,  and  none  of  them 
appear  to  be  entirely  empty. 

Most  of  the  bones  are  pierced  through  their 
outside  with  one  or  more  holes  of  considerable 
size,  through  each  of  which  goes  an  artery  to 
convey  blood  to  nourish  the  bones  ;  and  a 
vein  comes  out  by  the  same  passage,  to  bring 
back  what  is  not  used  up.  You  may  wonder 
that  I  should  talk  about  blood  in  the  bones. 


*  This  is  true  of  the  bones  of  most  other  animals 
besides  man.     The  bones  of  many  birds,  however,  are 
entirely  hollow,  and  contain  air,  to  assist  them  in  flying. 
4 


38  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN* 

But  there  is  blood  in  them,  though  not  a  great 
deal.  This  blood,  with  its  vessels,  the  nerves, 
and  the  membranous  lining,  together  with  the 
marrow  and  liquid  matter  which  they  contain, 
amount  to  many  pounds  in  weight ;  for  after 
the  bones  of  any  animal  have  been  thoroughly 
dried,  and  all  moisture  extracted  from  them, 
they  become  almost  twice  as  light  as  before. 
The  bones  of  the  whole  human  frame,  when 
perfectly  dry,  weigh  from  eight  to  twelve 
pounds. 

When  they  appear  perfectly  dry,  if  you  burn 
them  in  a  hot  fire  for  a  long  time,  you  will 
lessen  their  weight  a  great  deal  more  ;  I  be- 
lieve about  one  half.  What  burns  out,  in  these 
cases,  is  animal  substance — principally  gela- 
tine, or  that  which  makes  glue.  The  half 
which  remains  is  much  of  it  carbonate  of  lime, 
or  chalk.  So  that  a  person  carries  about  with 
him,  every  day,  a  considerable  quantity  of  lime. 

The  great  purpose  which  the  Creator  doubt- 
less had  in  view,  in  giving  us  such  a  frame- 
work of  strong  bones  was,  that  it  might  support 
and  give  solidity  to  the  soft  and  fleshy  parts. 
Suppose,  now,  that  there  were  no  bones ;  and 
that  the  whole  body  was  a  mass  of  flesh  only. 


MATERIAL    OF    THE    FRAME.-  39 

Would  not  the  legs  give  way,  and  finally  be 
crushed  under  the  great  weight  of  the  body  ? 
Would  not  the  arms  be  almost  useless  ?  Most 
certainly  they  would. 

But  there  are  several  other  important  uses 
for  bones,  which  might  be  mentioned.  Some 
of  them  you  will  not  very  readily  understand, 
till  you  know  more  about  muscles  and  tendons. 
I  will  therefore  omit  them  for  the  present. 

GROWTH  OF  BONE. — We  are  not  born  with 
the  bones  as  hard  as  they  become  after  we 
begin  to  walk  and  run  about.  At  first,  many 
of  them  are  very  soft ;  and  a  large  number  of 
them  are  in  several  pieces,  with  cartilage  or 
gristle  between  them.  After  a  few  years,  they 
grow  firmly  together.  The  bones  of  the  head, 
in  particular,  are  at  first  separate  ;  and,  without 
doing  any  injury  to  the  soft  brain  within,  will 
move  a  little.  But  after  we  become  older,  and 
the  whole  skull  beconies  firm,  it  would  require 
a  very  considerable  force  to  move  them  ;  and 
the  consequences  of  moving  them,  were  we 
able  to  do  it,  would  be  dangerous. 

There  is  undoubtedly  life,  as  it  is  often 
called,  (though  we  hardly  know  what  life  is,) 


40  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

in  bones  ;  but  while  we  are  well,  there  is  not 
much  feeling  in  them  ;  and  when  the  surgeon 
amputates  or  saws  off  a  limb,  the  sawing  of  the 
bone  does  not  usually  cause  much  pain.  In 
some  cases  of  disease,  the  bones,  it  is  true,  are 
very  tender,  and  then  sawing  them  off  is 
painful. 

VESSELS  IN  BONES. — There  are  also  many 
blood-vessels  and  nerves  running  about  in  small 
holes  in  the  interior  of  bones ;  and  wherever 
there  are  nerves,  there  is  life.  That  blood  is 
conveyed  into  and  through  the  bones,  can  be 
made  evident  by  forcing  or  injecting  melted 
wax,  colored  like  blood,  into  them. 

Another  method  is  employed  to  prove  the 
same  thing.  If  some  small  animal,  as  a  rabbit, 
is  fed  a  short  time  upon  madder,  most  of  the 
bones  will  be  found  tinged  with  the  coloring 
principle  of  the  madder. 

We  are  now  prepared;  I  think,  to  proceed 
with  our  studies  on  the  frame-work  of  the 
house. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


SILLS   OF  THE   HOUSE. 

Situation  of  the  hip  bones.     Structure.     The  hip  joint. 
An  abuse. 

You  well  know,  I  suppose,  that  after  the 
foundation  walls  of  a  common  building — say  a 
dwelling  house — are  well  prepared,  and  made 
level,  they  lay  on  large  sticks  of  timber,  called 
sills.  On  these  sills  they  place  the  body  or 
principal  portion  of  the  building,  and  by  means 
of  joints,  fasten  it  at  the  corners,  as  well  as  at 
other  places. 

SITUATION  OF  THE  HIP  BONES. — The  sills 
of  the  house  I  live  in  are  two  large  irregular 
bones,  placed  at  the  top  of  what  I  have,  for 
the  sake  of  convenience,  called  the  pillars. 
These  two  large  bones  are  very  firm  and  strong. 
You  will  find  so  much  difficulty  in  understand- 
ing my  explanations  of  their  shape  without  it, 
that  I  will  show  you  a  picture  of  them. 


42  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


These  bones  are  called  in  books  the  ossa 
innominata.  Os  is  a  Latin  word  for  bone  ; 
and  ossa  is  its  plural,  meaning  more  bones  than 
one.  Innominata  means  without  a  name,  or 
nameless ;  but  the  very  word  innominata  makes 
a  tolerable  name,  though  rather  long.  So  if  a 
very  young  child,  found  in  the  streets,  whom 
nobody  knew,  should  be  called  Peter  Name- 
less, that  word  nameless  would  answer  all 
purposes. 

STRUCTURE. — I  have  said  that  the  ossa 
innominata  were  very  firm  and  strong.  They 
are  so  in  grown  persons — but  in  a  chiid  they 
are  less  so,  and  are  in  three  pieces,  each  of 
which  has  a  different  name.  They  are  joined 
together  by  a  firm  gristle  or  cartilage.  Behind, 
however,  is  a  strong  wedge-like  bone,  between 
them.  Between  this  last  bone,  called  the 
sacrum,  and  each  of  the  ossa  innominata,  there 
is  also  a  very  strong  gristle  ;  but  it  is  not  so 
thick  or  strong  as  the  one  I  have  just  men- 


SILLS    OF    THE    HOUSE.  43 

tioned.  The  ossa  innominata  and  sacrum  make 
a  kind  of  cup,  or  deep  bowl — open  at  the 
bottom,  it  is  true,  but  still  bowl-like  in  its 
shape.  This  bowl  is  called  the  pelvis. 

HIP  JOINT. — The  manner  of  fastening  the 
thigh  bone,  or  femur,  to  the  hollow  of  the 
innominatum,  is  very  remarkable.  I  shall  give 
a  particular  account  of  it,  with  an  engraving, 
farther  along  in  the  book  ;  so  that  a  few  words 
must  answer,  for  the  present. 

The  hollow,  where  the  femur  is  fastened,  is 
shaped  like  the  inside  of  an  egg  shell,  with  the 
small  end  broken  off,  and  has  received  the 
name  of  acetabulum,  from  its  supposed  resem- 
blance to  the  cup  with  which  the  ancients 
measured  vinegar.  The  round  end  of  the 
femur  is  fastened  in  this  deep  cavity  by  a  very 
large  and  strong  cord.  The  shoulder  is  often 
dislocated,  or  slipped  out  of  its  place  ;  but  this 
hollow  is  so  deep,  and  the  cord  so  strong,  that 
nothing  but  very  great  violence  will  break  the 
cord,  or  slip  the  femur  out  of  its  place. 

AN  ABUSE. — I  have  said  that  these  two 
great  bones  are  united  by  a  very  strong  card- 


44  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

lage.  This  is  true  ;  but  it  is  also  true  that 
while  we  are  young,  and  even  after  we  are 
older,  if  we  have  lived  temperately,  this  carti- 
lage, which  is  very  thick,  will  stretch  or  yield 
much  more  than  you  would  at  first  suppose 
possible.  It  is  of  very  great  importance  to 
everybody — though  much  more  so  to  some 
than  to  others — to  preserve  the  soft  and  yield- 
ing nature  of  these  cartilages  as  long  as  possi- 
ble. To  do  this,  you  must  run  about  and  play 
much  while  young — not  with  violence,  but  like 
the  lamb  ;  you  must  labor  moderately  every 
day,  as  you  grow  older ;  you  must  rise  with 
the  lark,  and  go  to  bed  almost  as  early  as  the 
fowls  ;  you  must  breathe  pure  air ;  your  drink 
must  be  water,  and  your  food  must  be  of  the 
plainest  and  purest  kinds,  and  not  in  excessive 
quantity — and  must  be  well  masticated  or 
chewed.  Then  may  you  hope  to  preserve 
your  bones  and  cartilages  in  a  good  and  healthy 
state  till  you  are  quite  old.  But  some  of  these 
things  will  be  adverted  to  in  other  chapters. 


CHAPTER  Y. 


BODY  OF  THE   HOUSE. 

% 

Height.  The  spine.  Each  vertebra.  General  de- 
scription. The  ribs.  The  breast  bone.  The  collar 
bone.  The  shoulder  blade. 

HEIGHT. — Houses  consist  of  one  or  more 
stories,  according  to  the  taste  or  design  of  the 
builder.  Each  story,  as  you  know,  forms  a 
separate  row  or  tier  of  rooms.  The  best 
houses  are  those  with  fewest  stories.  But 
most  people  prefer,  if  they  are  able,  to  have 
at  least  two  stories — some  three.  In  cities, 
where  land  is  very  costly,  they  sometimes 
have  them  four,  five,  seven,  ten  and  eleven 
stories  high.  Four  stories,  in  our  large  towns 
and  cities,  is  very  common.  A  house  ten 
stories  high,  accommodating  ten  rows  or  tiers 
of  people,  one  above  another,  is  a  curious 
sight.  Houses  of  this  description  are  to  be 
met  with  in  Edinburgh,  and  Paris,  and  some 


46 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


other  European  cities.     The  house  in  which  I 
live  in  has  only  two  stones,  besides  a  cupola. 

THE  SPINE. — *The  principal  post — the 
main  pillar  of  the  building — the  spine,  runs 
through  both  stories,  and  is  of  singular  con- 
struction. We  usually  call  it  the  backbone. 
Here  is  a  representation  of  it. 


The   spine   is  composed  of  no  less  than 
twenty-four  separate  pieces ;  each  of  which  is 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  47 

called  a  vertebra.  The  plural  of  vertebra  is 
vertebra. 

The  seven  lower  vertebrae  are  very  large 
and  strong.  These  parts  of  the  frame  are  the 
principal  supporters  of  the  first  or  lower  story. 
The  twelve  next  above  them,  belonging  to 
the  second  story,  are  somewhat  smaller.  The 
seven  which  connect  the  upper  story  to  the 
cupola,  are  smaller  still.  Their  size,  in  gen- 
eral, decreases — not  suddenly,  but  gradually — 
from  the  bottom  upwards.  They  are  placed 
one  above  another,  somewhat  like  tea-cups  or 
saucers  inverted  and  piled  up. 

The  spine  or  back-bone  is  not  only  curious 
in  its  shape  and  structure,  but  of  the  utmost 
importance  in  the  human  frame.  Had  we  no 
spine,  the  limbs,  however  well  adapted  they 
are  for  their  purposes,  could  not  act ;  but 
would  fall  powerless  at  each  attempt  to  move 
them.  It  has  been  said,  that  "  if  one  mem- 
ber," in  any  part  of  the  body,  "  suffer,  all  the 
members  suffer  with  it."  This  is  especially 
true  of  the  spine. 

EACH  VERTEBRA. — Each  vertebra  has  a 
hole  of  considerable  size  in  the  middle  of  it- 


*     «'.' 

48  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

See  b  in  the  next  engraving.  What  is  there 
shown  you,  is  the  upper  surface  of  one  of  the 
vertebrae,  detached,  as  it  were,  from  its  neigh- 
bors, and  standing  by  itself. 


When  the  twrenty-four  vertebrae  are  placed 
one  above  another,  in  the  position  which  they 
occupy  in  the  living  body,  they  contain  a  hol- 
low channel  through  their  whole  length.  This 
hollow  is  filled  with  a  soft  substance,  very 
much  resembl'ing  the  marrow  of  other  bones, 
but  much  more  important.  It  seems  like  an 
arm  or  branch  of  the  brain  ;  for  there  is  an 
open  passage  from  the  bottom  of  the  cranium, 
or  brain-pan,  into  the  hollow  of  the  spine. 

There  is  a  very  curious  contrivance  for 
allowing  the  head  to  turn  from  side  to  side, 
without  pressing  upon  the  soft  substance  of 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  49 

which  I  have  just  been  speaking.*  This  is 
effected  by  having  the  top  vertebra  of  all — 
called  the  atlas — move  on  a  round  and  upward 
projection  of  the  second  vertebra,  much  like 
a  tooth  in  shape,  though  larger,  situated  on  the 
front  part  of  the  bone,  and  fastened  in  its  pro- 
per situation  by  a  cross  band  of  gristly  sub- 
stance. By  this  means  a  side  motion  may  be 
given  to  the  head,  without  moving  the  rest  of 
the  bones  of  the  spine  at  the  same  time. 

GENERAL  DESCRIPTION. — When  the  ver- 
tebrae are  put  together,  in  their  proper  position, 
there  are  large  notches  at  the  sides,  between 
each  two  bones,  so  exactly  matched  together 
as  to  form  a  hole.  Thus,  there  are  as  many 
holes  in  each  side  of  the  spine  as  there  are 
vertebra?.  Through  these  holes  large  branches 
of  the  marrow  of  the  spine  pass  off,  like  the 
branches  of  a  tree,  to  all  parts  of  the  body. 
These  branches  are  called  nerves.  At  first, 
they  are  pretty  large  ;  but  they  divide  and 
subdivide,  as  they  proceed*  towards  the  ex- 

*  Pressure  upon  the  spinal  marrow  would  be  produc- 
tive of  very  great  mischief,  and  is  therefore  wisely 
provided  against. 
5 


50  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

tremities  of  the  frame,  till  they  become  very 
small.  Their  number,  in  all  the  soft  parts 
of  the  body,  particularly  in  the  skin,  is  very 
great.  I  shall  say  more  about  these  in  an- 
other place. 

Those  two  upward  projections  in  the  plate, 
which  look  much  like  arms,  by  interlocking 
with  the  bones  above  and  below  them,  serve 
as  braces  to  the  whole  spine.  At  the  sides 
are  drawn,  in  outline,  parts  of  the  ribs  (c  e.) 
These  show  where  the  spine  and  ribs  come 
together.  That  projection,  which  in  the  en- 
graving extends  straight  upwards,  is  called  the 
spinous  process  of  the  vertebra?.  It  forms  no 
part  of  the  joint,  but  only  serves  as  a  point 
of  insertion  for  the  large  muscles  which  move 
the  back  and  head. 

Between  these  bones,  where  the  body  of 
each  («)  rests  upon  the  other,  is  a  tough  sub- 
stance or  gristle,  very  yielding  or  elastic,  almost 
like  India  rubber.  This  keeps  the  bones  from 
wearing  out  too  fast  when  they  move,  and  yet 
it  allows  of  their  'moving  pretty  freely. 

The  spine  is,  really,  one  of  the  most  curi- 
ous things  in  nature.  Why,  rope-dancers  and 
tumblers  will  bend  their  heads  back  till  they 


BODY  OF    THE    HOUSE.  51 

almost  touch  their  feet,  and  bring  this  straight 
pile  of  bones  nearly  into  the  shape  of  an  ox- 
bow. Why  does  it  not  produce  mischief  in 
some  way  ? 

The  gristle  or  cartilage  between  the  verte- 
bra is  very  thick  and  strong,  but  at  the  same 
time  very  yielding,  as  I  have  already  told  you, 
like  India  rubber ;  and  it  is  so  constructed  and 
placed,  as  will  best  allow  the  spine  to  bend 
about  in  all  the  various  ways  which  even 
tumblers  and  rope-dancers  could  wish. 

It  is  so  elastic  or  springy,  and  also  so  readily 
compressed,  that  people  who  stand  or  walk 
much,  are  really  a  little  shorter  at  night  than 
they  are  in  the  morning.  Rest  gives  the  elas- 
tic cartilages  time  and  opportunity  to  spring 
back  again  into  their  places,  while  we  sleep, 
so  that  by  the  next  morning  we  are  as  tall  as 
ever. 

I  ought,  however,  to  say — for  it  is  a  fact — 
that  old  people  settle  down  a  little,  and  are 
not  so  tall  as  in  middle  age  ;  which  is  partly 
owing  to  these  cartilages  yielding  and  yielding 
till  they  become  thinner. 

If  the  soft  marrow  of  the  spine,  (which 
runs  down  from  the  brain,)  should  happen  to 


52  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

be  bruised  or  injured,  there  would  be  an  end 
of  all  motion,  at  least  of  the  lower  limbs. 
If  the  spine  gets  broken,  it  cannot  be  mended, 
and  the  sufferer  will  never  wholly  recover. 
How  happy,  then,  that  it  is  so  contrived  and 
so  firmly  put  together,  as  rarely  to  be  broken 
or  dislocated  ! 

The  other  and  shorter  posts  of  the  house  I 
live  in,  will  be  mentioned  presently. 

We  are  ready,  now,  to  study  the  frame  of 
the  upper  or  second  story  of  the  building.  It 
consists  of  a  much  greater  number  and  variety 
of  parts  than  the  frame  of  the  first  story. 

THE  RIBS. — The  ribs  may  be  compared  to 
the  girders  of  a  building ;  though  they  look 
more  like  the  hoops  of  a  cask  than  like  girders. 
There  are  twelve  of  them  on  each  side. 
Each  of  them  is  connected,  by  one  of  its 
ends,  to  the  large  post  or  spine  ;  and,  by  the 
other,  to  a  shorter  post — the  breast  bone. 
Only  seven,  however,  are  joined  closely  to  the 
breast  bone  itself.  The  other  five  go  a  part 
of  the  way  across  ;  the  rest  of  the  way  they 
are  formed  of  gristle  or  cartilage,  and  are 
united  to  each  other  and  to  the  upper  seven, 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE. 


53 


instead  of  being  united  directly  to  the  breast 
bone.  The  former — the  seven — are  some- 
times called  the  true  ribs ;  the  latter,  the  false 
ones.  Here  is  a  view  of  this  part  of  the 
frame. 


The  length  of  the  ribs  increases  from  the 
first  or  upper  one,  till  you  come  to  the  seventh, 
which  is  the  longest.  From  the  seventh  to 
the  twelfth,  they  grow  shorter  again,  and  the 


54  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

i 

cartilages,  of  course,  become  longer  in  the 
same  proportion.  The  twelfth  rib  is  very 
short. 

The  number  of  ribs  is  almost  always 
twelve  ;  but  sometimes  there  are  only  eleven, 
and  at  others,  thirteen.  But  instances  of  more 
or  less  than  twelve  do  not  probably  occur  in 
one  person  in  a  thousand. 

In  days  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  a 
notion  prevailed  in  some  parts  of  the  world — 
which  is  not  yet  wholly  extinct — that  men 
have  one  rib  less  on  one  side  than  on  the  other. 
It  is  said  that  as  Eve  was  formed  of  a  rib 
taken  from  Adam's  side,  he  and  all  his  male 
posterity  have  one  rib  the  less  for  it.  I  hardly 
need  to  say  that  this  notion  is  wholly  un- 
founded. 

BREAST  BONE. — I  have  just  alluded  to  the 
breast  bone.  The  name  of  this,  in  books,  is 
the  sternum.  It  has  been  usually  considered 
as  only  one  bone ;  but,  like  many  others  of  the 
human  frame,  in  infancy  and  youth  it  consists 
of  several  pieces,  (three  in  number,)  closely 
united  by  gristle  or  cartilage ;  but  in  advanced 
life,  the  whole  usually  becomes  one  solid  bone 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  55 

Long  continued  boiling,  however,  will  separate 
almost  any  of  the  bones  which  are  formed  in 
this  manner. 

There  are  a  few  other  parts  of  the  frame 
of  the  second  story  which  remain  to  be  noticed, 
and  which  I  will  call  the  braces.  They  are 
four  in  number — two  before  and  two  behind. 

The  braces  here  alluded  to  are, 

1.  The  Collar  Bone. — This  forms  a  kind 
of  brace  between  the  shoulder  and  the  breast 
bone,  and  so  nearly  resembles  a  rib,  that  a 
separate  cut,  to  show  its  shape  and  position, 
seems  unnecessary.     You  will  see  it  in  two  or 
three  of  the  engravings,  running  across  from 
the  shoulder  to  the  breast  bone  or  sternum. 

2.  The  Shoulder  Blade.— This  is  a  broad, 
flat  bone,  with  ridges  on  it ;   and,  at  the  fore 
part,  is  the  hollow  or  socket,  in   which  the 
round  head  or  ball  of  the  humerus  or  arm- 
bone  lies  and  moves.     This  bone  is  called 
by  anatomists  the  scapula. 

While  speaking  of  the  shoulder  blade,  and 
saying  that  it  consists  merely  of  one  large 
bone,  I  am  reminded  of  an  anecdote  I  saw 
lately,  of  an  ignorant  or  quack  bone-setter. 
He  was  attempting  to  set,  that  is,  place  in  its 


56 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


right  position,  a  dislocated  shoulder  blade ; 
and  in  order  to  make  himself  appear  wondrous 
wise,  as  quacks  are  apt  to  do,  he  tried  to 
encourage  his  patient  to  endure  the  severe 
pain  he  was  causing  him,  "  for,"  said  he,  "  I 
have  got  three  of  the  bones  into  their  place 
already,  and  shall  soon  have  the  rest  of  them 
right!" 

Here  is  a  representation  of  this  bone,  about 
which  the  pretender  or  quack  affected  to 
know  so  much,  and  yet  knew  so  little. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


BODY   OF  THE  HOUSE.— CONTINUED. 

The  arms,  or  appendages.    Account  of  the  hand.    Uses 

of  the  hand. 

' 

ARMS. — These  are  not  posts,  for,  in  their 
natural  position,  they  support  nothing.  They 
are  not  braces,  for  they  strengthen  no  part  of 
the  frame.  They  are  properly  appendages, 
but  they  are  very  convenient  ones  ;  and  though 
they  can  be  torn  off  without  spoiling  the 
building,  their  loss  very  much  injures  it. 
They  seem  to  answer,  in  some  good  degree, 
the  purposes  of  stairs,  ladders,  tackles,  pulleys, 
and  other  machinery  for  raising  things  from 
the  ground,  and  conveying  them  to  the  upper 
part  of  a  building.  These  appendages — we 
will  at  once  call  them  arms  and  hands — how- 
ever, answer  a  much  better  purpose  than  any 
of  those. 

The  arm  and  hand,  taken  together,  consti- 
tute a  most  wonderful  apparatus  for  motion. 


58  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

The  particular  structure  of  the  joints,  as  well 
as  the  peculiarities  of  the  hand,  must  be  re- 
served for  another  place  ;  hut  it  is  necessary 
to  say  a  little  about  the  arm. 

The  bones  of  the  arm  have  a  slight  resem- 
blance to  those  of  the  leg.  The  upper  part 
consists  of  only  one  bone.  This  is  long  and 
round,  and  is  called  the  humerus.  It  is  fast- 
ened above  to  the  scapula.  Below,  at  the 
elbow,  it  is  connected  to  the  two  bones  of  the 
lower  half  of  the  arm,  by  a  joint  like  a  hinge, 
and  by  ligaments  or  straps,  which  extend  from 
near  the  lower  end  of  the  upper  bone  to  the 
topmost  end  of  the  others.  The  largest  of  the 
two  latter  bones  is  called  the  ulna,  which  is  a 
Latin  word  for  cubit ;  because  the  arm,  below 
the  elbow,  is  usually  considered  about  a  cubit 
in  length.  The  smaller  one  is  called  the 
radius  or  spoke,  from  its  supposed  resemblance 
to  the  spoke  of  a  wheel.  It  is  the  bone  from 
the  elbow  on  a  line  with  the  thumb. 

The  connection  at  the  shoulder  is  such,  that 
the  arm  can  be  moved  in  almost  every  con- 
ceivable direction.  The  elbow  joint  only  ad- 
mits of  one  sort  of  motion,  viz.,  forward  and 
backward,  like  a  door  on  its  hinges.  But  the 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  59 

connection  of  the  radius,  or  smaller  bone  of 
the  arm,  with  the  ulna,  or  larger  one,  is  such 
that  it  more  than  makes  up  for  this  deficiency. 
The  upper  end  of  the  radius  having  a  rotatory 
motion,  in  a  depression  of  the  ulna,  allows  the 
hand,  to  be  placed  with  each  of  its  surfaces 
upwards  with  great  facility.  These  motions 
are  usually  called  pro-nation,  when  the  palm 
of  the  hand  is  downwards,  and  supination, 
when  the  palm  of  the  hand  is  upwards.  Then 
the  wrist,  consisting,  as  it  does,  of  eight  bones, 
all  movable,  and  being  so  connected  with  the 
lower  bones  of  the  arm  as  to  admit  of  very 
free  motion,  renders  the  arm  one  of  the  most 
useful  contrivances  in  the  world.  It  will  per- 
form as  varied  and  rapid  movements  as  the 
trunk  of  the  elephant ;  and  were  it  not  com- 
mon, would  probably  excite  equal  surprise. 

It  was  said  that  this  whole  portion  of  the 
building  could  be  torn  off  without  spoilrrcg  it. 
Cheselden,  an  English  anatomist,  relates  that 
a  miller  had  the  whole  arm,  shoulder-blade 
and  all,  torn  off,  and  yet  his  life  was-  not 
injured.  The  great  danger,  in  such  cas^s,  is 
from  bleeding  ;  but  torn  blood-vessels-  do  not 
bleed  so  freely  as  those  which  are  cut. 


60 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


THE  HAND. — I  wish  to  give  you  a  few 
particulars  about  the  hand.  This  extremity 
of  the  arm  is  by  far  the  most  curious  part  of  it. 
I  do  not  know  that  there  is  a  greater  curiosity 
in  the  whole  world  than  the  human  hand. 

The  truth  is,  many  of  the  best,  as  well  as 
the  most  curious  objects  in  the  world,  are 
neglected  in  the  same  manner.  Think  of  the 
thousand  uses  of  water.  What  living  thing 
could  exist  without  it  ?  And  are  we  thankful 
for  so  valuable  a  gift  ? 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  61 

The  bones  represented  in  the  engraving  are 
those  of  the  left  hand  ;  and  you  look  upon  the 
top,  or  back  side  of  it.  The  foot  is  also  in- 
serted here,  but  has  been  described  in  another 
place.  See  Chap.  II. 

The  whole  hand  and  wrist  contain  twenty- 
seven  bones ;  nineteen  in  the  former,  and  eight 
in  the  latter.  The  bones  in  the  hand  have  a 
general  resemblance,  though  some  are  much 
longer  than  others.  The  four  longest,  opposite 
figure  1,  support  the  palm  of  the  hand,  and  are 
joined  at  one  end  to  the  wrist  bones,  and  at 
the  other  to  the  first  joint  of  the  fingers.  The 
junction  of  these  bones  is  effected,  as  are  all 
the  other  joints  of  the  body,  by  means  of  car- 
tilaginous tips,  which  allow  of  free  motion, 
and  are  strongly  secured  by  ligaments.  This 
series  of  bones  is  called  the  metacarpus. 

The  bones  of  the  wrist  are  called  the  carpus. 
They  are  situated  between  the  ulna  (5)  and 
radius  (6)  on  the  one  side,  and  the  metacarpal 
bones  and  the  first  bone  of  the  thumb  on  the 
other.  They  are  wedged  together,  like  the 
stones  of  a  pavement,  only  not  quite  so  firmly, 
each  bone  being  tipped  with  cartilage,  and 
sustained  by  strong  ligaments,  which  unite  it 
6 


62  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE   IN. 

to  ks  fellows-  It  is  only  necessary  to  add, 
that  the  bony  structure  of  the  wrist  is  of  an 
arch-like  form,  with  the  convexity  correspond- 
ing to  the  upper  part  of  the  hand  ;  the  con- 
venience of  which  must  be  easily  seen. 

The  first  four  bones  of  the  fingers,  opposite 
figure  2,  are  the  longest.  Those  opposite  3 
are  shorter ;  the  last,  or  those  marked  4,  are 
shorter  still.  The  thumb  has  one  bone  less 
than  the  fingers.  All  the  joints  of  the  hand — 
and  there  are  fourteen,  besides  the  wrist — are 
hinge  joints,  and  the  ends  of  the  bones  are 
made  a  little  like  door  hinges  ;  of  course  they 
only  bend  in  one  direction.  Where  the  fingers 
join  to  the  metacarpal  bones,  there  is  much 
more  freedom  of  motion  than  at  the  hinge-like 
finger  joints  ;  but  the  joint  at  the  wrist  admits 
of  motion,  very  freely,  in  every  direction. 

When  the  bones  of  the  hand  are  not  quite 
as  naked  as  they  appear  in  the  engraving,  but 
are  dressed  up  with  muscles,  tendons,  mem- 
branes, nerves,  arteries  and  veins,  and  covered 
with  skin,  nails,  &c.,  in  a  manner  which  I 
cannot  now  fully  describe,  the  whole  presents 
a  most  beautiful  appearance.  Beautiful  and 
useful  as  it  is,  however,  and  placed  before  our 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  63 

eyes  from  the  first  time  we  see  the  light  till 
we  sieep  in  death,  there  are  few  things  in  the 
whole  visible  world,  of  which  not  only  chil- 
dren, but  adults,  are  so  ignorant ! 

So  important  is  the  human  hand,  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  system,  that  Sir  Charles  Bell's 
Bridgewater  Treatise — a  pretty  large  volume 
— is  wholly  devoted  to  the  description  of  it. 
I  will  make,  in  this  place,  a  short  extract  from 
thai  admirable  work. 

"  The  difference  in  the  length  of  the  fingers 
serves  a  thousand  purposes,  adapting  the  hand 
and  fingers,  as  in  holding  a  rod,  a  switch,  a 
sword,  a  hammer,  a  pen  or  pencil,  engraving 
tool,  &LC.,  in  all  which  a  secure  hold  and  free- 
dom of  motion  are  admirably  combined.  No- 
thing is  more  remarkable  than  the  manner  in 
which  the  delicate  and  moving  apparatus  of 
ihe  palm  and  fingers  is  guarded.  The  power 
with  which  the  hand  grasps,  as  when  a  sailor 
lays  hold  to  raise  his  body  to  the  rigging, 
would  be  too  great  for  the  texture  of  mere 
tendons,  nerves  and  vessels  ;  they  would  be 
crushed,  were  not  every  part  that  bears  the 
pressure  defended  with  a  cushion  of  fat,  as 
elastic  as  that  which  we  have  described  in  the 


64  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

foot  of  the  horse  and  the  camel.  To  add  to 
this,  there  is  a  muscle  which  runs  across  the 
palm  of  the  hand,  and  supports  the  cushion 
on  the  inner  edge.  It  is  this  muscle  which, 
raising  the  inner  edge  of  the  palm,  forms  the 
drinking  cup  of  Diogenes." 

USES  OF  THE  HAND. — Small  as  this  mem- 
ber of  the  frame  is,  it  is  a  part  of  the  utmost 
consequence.  Even  if  the  house  the  soul 
lives  in  were  a  palace,  or  had  cost  as  much  as 
St.  Peter's  Church  at  Rome,  or  the  Pyramids 
of  Egypt,  it  would  be  of  very  little  use  with- 
out it.  And  if  all  such  houses  in  the  world 
were  without  it,  neither  those  houses,  nor 
anything  else,  would  long  be  worth  much. 
The  farmer  could  not  sow  his  grain,  nor  plant 
his  corn,  nor  weed  or  hoe  it  while  growing, 
nor  gather  it  when  ripe.  Nor,  if  it  were 
raised,  could  the  miller  grind  it,  or  the  baker 
make  it  into  bread.  Neither  could  we  raise 
anything  else  to  eat  in  its  stead.  We  might 
get  along  a  few  years  with  what  is  already 
raised ;  but  what  then  ?  The  fruits  and  roots 
and  nuts  which  grow  without  cultivation — I 
mean  without  our  labor — would  not  last  us 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  65 

and  the  thousands  of  beasts  and  birds  which 
feed  on  them,  very  long. 

Do  you  say  that  if  we  could  get  nothing 
else  to  eat,  we  should  then  have  a  good  right 
to  kill  and  eat  animals  ?  But  we  could  not 
get  them.  How  could  we  ? 

Besides  all  this,  the  tailor  could  not  make 
us  clothes,  nor  the  hatter  and  milliner  hats 
and  bonnets,  nor  the  shoemaker  boots  and 
shoes.  When  those  already  made  were  worn 
out,  we  should  be  obliged  to  go  naked,  sum- 
mer and  winter,  in  all  climates  ;  for  we  could 
not  get  even  the  skins  of  animals. 

Then  again,  we  could  not  write  to  other 
parts  of  the  country  for  help,  even  if  there 
were  anybody  to  help  us.  Neither  could  the 
mariner  seek  a  cargo  of  food  in  other  coun- 
tries ;  for  he  could  not  spread  his  sails,  nor 
guide  the  helm  of  his  vessel.  In  short,  we 
could  do  nothing,  long,  to  any  purpose ;  but 
after  gazing  awhile  upon  each  other's  starving 
and  emaciated  frames,  we  should  all  lie  to- 
gether in  one  common  tomb  ;  and  that  tomb 
would  be  the  surface  of  the  earth,  arched  over 
with  the  blue  canopy  of  the  heavens;  for 
nobody  could  be  buried. 


66  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Some  of  you  may  think  this  representation 
of  the  sad  case  we  should  be  in,  rather  exag- 
gerated. "  We  should  not  be  such  helpless 
creatures,"  you  may  perhaps  say.  "  Why, 
there  is  a  story  I  have  seen  about  a  French 
woman,  who  was  destitute  of  this  instrument 
and  some  others,  and  yet  she  could  do  a  great 
many  sorts  of  work,  and  even  write,  draw 
and  sew."  Yes,  and  the  story  was  undoubt- 
edly true.  I  have  heard  stories  like  it  before. 
I  have  heard  of  a  man,  in  the  same  condition, 
who  could  write  with  his  breast.  His  pen 
wras  fastened  to  a  girdle,  and  then  he  could 
dip  it  in  the  ink,  and  write  very  well  with  it. 

But  these  are  extraordinary  cases,  in  which 
nature  is  permitted,  for  some  reason  which  we 
cannot  discover,  to  depart  from  her  established 
laws.  Such  occurrences,  however,  no  more 
prove  that  people,  constituted  as  we  are,  could 
live  upon  this  earth  without  the  aid  of  their 
hands,  than  the  existence  among  his  fellow  crea- 
tures of  a  person  afflicted  with  blindness,  proves 
that  all  could  get  along  well  without  the  use 
of  their  eye-sight.  The  persons  I  have  men- 
tioned could  not  have  made  the  pens  and 
pencils  to  write  and  draw  with,  nor  the  needles 


BODY    OF    THE    HOUSE.  67 

to  sew  with  ;  nor  could  the  man  have  placed 
the  pen  in  his  girdle.  And  there  are  a  thou- 
sand other  necessary  things  which  they  could 
not  do. 

The  human  tongue  is  spoken  of  by  an  in- 
spired writer  as  being  a  "  little  member,"  yet 
boasting  great  things.  So  this  small  member 
of  the  frame  which  we  are  talking  of  is  a 
"  little  "  affair,  but  great  things  depend  upon 
it.  It  is  a  sort  of  connecting  link,  that,  if 
used,  serves  to  bind  the  human  soul  to  the 
habitation  it  occupies,  for  a  few  years — seldom 
more  than  a  hundred.  Without  it,  or  neglect- 
ing to  use  it,  our  lives,  as  a  race,  must  soon 
terminate.  "  He  that  will  not  work,  neither 
shall  he  eat,"  is  a  divine  law  ;  and  we  could 
not  work  much  without  the  aid  of  this  beauti- 
ful piece  of  divine  mechanism. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  CUPOLA. 

The  cranium.  Bones  of  the  face  and  jaws.  The  teeth. 
Growth  of  the  teeth.  Structure  of  the  teeth.  Uses 
of  the  teeth.  Bones  of  the  ear.  Bone  of  the  throat. 


WE  come  now  to  the  cupola,  by  which  I 
mean  the  skull,  which  is  placed  on  the  top  of 
the  great  post.  I  have  already  told  you  that 
seven  of  the  twenty-four  pieces  which  form 
that  post  are  situated  above  the  second  story 
of  the  building,  arid  unite  the  skull  to  the 
trunk.  You  will  observe  the  open  chamber 
at  the  upper  part,  and  you  may  also  see  the 
places  for  doors  and  windows. 


THE    CUPOLA.  69 

I  must  slop  here  long  enough  to  say  that — 
unlike  what  is  seen  in  ordinary  dwellings — the 
doors  and  windows  of  the  house  I  live  in  are 
in  the  cupola :  there  is  not  one  door  in  either 
the  first  or  second  story.  The  windows,  and 
some  of  the  doors,  are  placed  in  front — the 
rest  of  the  doors  at  the  sides.  The  doors  and 
windows  themselves,  as  you  know,  properly 
belong  to  the  covering  ;  they  will  therefore  be 
described  under  that  head. 

I  have  called  the  mouth  and  ears  and  nos- 
trils doors,  to  keep  up  the  metaphor  which 
pervades  the  work ;  but  the  eyes  may,  with 
the  greatest  propriety,  be  regarded  as  win- 
dows. All  sound,  smell  and  taste  come  to  us 
through  these  passages,  and  the  machinery  or 
organs  near  and  within  them  :  why  then  may 
they  not  properly  be  considered  as  doors  ? 

THE  CRANIUM. — At  the  beginning  of  this 
chapter,  I  showed  you  a  picture  of  the  bones 
of  the  whole  head.  Now  if  the  bones  of  the 
face  and  neck  were  taken  quite  away,  and 
nothing  left  but  the  hollow  brain-case,  (cra- 
nium?) the  appearance  would  be  very  different. 


70  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Here  is  a  front  view  of  a  skull  from  which  the 
bones  below  have  thus  been  removed. 


You  see,  in  front,  the  top  of  the  cavity  or 
socket  for  each  of  the  two  eyes  ;  and  on  one 
side,  the  place  where  the  ear  should  be,  in  the 
living  person.  This  brain-case  is  composed 
of  eight  bones,  most  of  which  are  closely 
united  by  a  rough  edge,  like  that  of  a  saw, 
the  notches  of  which  shut  into  each  other  as 
exactly  as  saw  teeth  would,  and  form  what 
may  be  called  seams.  These  seams  are  by 
anatomists  called  sutures,  and  are  nine  or  ten 
in  number. 

One  of  the  most  important  bones  of  the 
skull,  or  brain-pan,  is  that  which  stretches 
across  the  whole  forehead,  and  is  called  the  os 
frontisy  or  frontal  bone.  Another,  across  the 


THE    CUPOI/A.  71 

back  side  of  the  head,  and  shaped  thus.  A,  is 
called  the  os  occipitis.  Its  sharp  top  reaches 
to  the  crown  of  the  head.  Another  piece, 
shaped  a  little  like  a  clam-shell,  lies  around 
each  ear.  It  is  the  os  temporis.  There  are, 
of  course,  two  of  these.  On  the  upper  part 
of  the  head,  surrounded  by  those  already  de- 
scribed, are  the  two  parietal  bones.  Sur- 
rounded by  them  all,  in  the  bottom  of  the 
skull,  is  a  large  bone,  the  os  sphenoides,  and  a 
small  one,  the  os  ethmoides. 

Now  this  whole  space,  as  I  shall  hereafter 
show  you  more  fully,  is  rilled  up  with  brain. 
In  an  adult,  the  brain  weighs  from  two  and  a 
half  to  three  and  a  quarter  pounds.  In  a  few 
instances,  it  has  been  found  somewhat  larger. 

BONES  OF  THE  FACE  AND  JAWS. — There 
are  six  bones  on  each  side,  to  form  the  face. 
They  are  grouped  together  under  the  common 
name  of  the  upper  jaw.  All  of  these  bones, 
like  those  of  the  skull,  have  names  assigned  to 
them,  and,  like  them,  are  united  by  what  are 
called  sutures. 

The  lower  jaw  is  one  strong  bone,  which 
has  been  imagined  to  resemble  a  horse-shoe, 


72  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

in  its  shape — but  the  resemblance  is  not  very 
exact.  Both  the  upper  and  lower  jaws  serve 
for  the  attachment  of  powerful  muscles,  which 
are  more  or  less  concerned  in  the  work  of 
mastication 3  or  chewing. 

THE  TEETH. —Around  one  of  the  larger 
doors  of  the  cupola  is  a  most  remarkable 
arrangement,  which  deserves  a  particular  de- 
scription. There  is  a  slight  resemblance, 
here,  to  one  kind  of  wheel,  with  its  compo- 
nent parts  or  cogs. 

There  are,  however,  no  wheels  here.  There 
is,  indeed,  something  like  a  mill,  and  it  per- 
forms an  operation  not  unlike  grinding  \  but 
the  motion  by  which  this  grinding  is  performed 
is  much  like  that  of  a  pestle  and  mortar. 
One  of  the  segments  of  a  wheel,  with  its  cogs, 
stands  still  during  the  operation,  while  the 
other  moves  up  and  down  upon  it,  and  breaks 
in  pieces  the  substances  which  come  between. 
It  also  slides  a  little  to  the  right  and  left,  upon 
the  other,  and  thus  renders  the  grinding  pro- 
cess complete. 

Look  now  at  the  engraving.  This  repre- 
sents the  left  side  of  part  of  the  bones  of  the 


THE    CUPOLA.  73 

human  face,  as  it  would  appear  if  the  outside 
of  both  the  upper  and  lower  jaw  were  split 
off  and  taken  away. 


When  the  numher  of  teeth  is  complete,  in 
an  adult,  and  none  have  been  lost  or  drawn 
out,  each  jaw  contains  sixteen  ;  and  both,  of 
course,  thirty-two.  In  the  engraving,  you  see 
eight  of  the  teeth  above  and  eight  below ; 
that  is,  just  half  of  the  whole.  Children  have 
but  twenty  teeth  at  first,  or  ten  in  each  jaw. 
These  twenty  are  sometimes  called  the  milk 
teeth,  because  they  appear  while  the  child's 
principal  food  is  milk.  These  they  shed, 
between  the  ages  of  seven  and  fourteen  years, 
and  thirty-two  new  ones  grow  in  their  place. 

7 


74  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

There  is  a  period  in  every  child's  life — say 
at  about  the  age  of  six  years — when,  if  it 
have  not  yet  begun  to  shed  its  first  set  of 
teeth,  there  are  forty-eight  in  both  jaws — 
twenty  in  sight,  and  twenty-eight  beneath 
them,  lying  deep  in  the  jaws,  at  the  roots  of 
the  former. 

When  you  look  at  the  jaw-bone  of  man,  or 
any  other  animal,  however,  you  do  not  see 
the  roots  or  fangs  of  the  teeth.  They  are 
encased  or  buried  deep  in  the  jaw.  Those  in 
front  have  only  one  root  each  ;  the  grinders,  or 
double  teeth,  have  two,  and  sometimes  more. 

There  are  four  kinds  of  teeth  in  each  jaw, 
viz.,  four  front  teeth,  two  canine  teeth,  called 
also  eye  teeth,  four  small  grinders,  and  six 
large  grinders.  Of  these,  half  are  of  course 
on  each  side.  -^ '•*•• 

The  fore  teeth  and  eye  teeth  have  but  one 
root  each.  The  small  grinders  do  not  often 
have  more  than  one,  but  they  are  usually  in- 
dented lengthwise,  so  as  to  have  the  appear- 
ance of  two.  The  large  grinders  of  the  lower 
jaw  have  two  roots,  and  those  of  the  upper 
have  three — two  before,  and  one  behind,  or 
on  the  inside. 


THE    CUPOLA.  75 

Who  does  not  admire  a  good  set  of  teeth  ? 
With  some  people,  they  are  one  of  the  princi- 
pal marks  of  beauty.  But  they  are  useful, 
as  well  as  handsome,  as  long  as  they  remain 
sound.  The  teeth  of  some  persons  remain 
sound  and  beautiful  all  their  days.  Would 
you  like  to  have  yours  do  the  same  ?  Let  us 
then  attend  to  the  following  particular  account 
of  them ;  and  perhaps  when  we  know  their 
nature  and  structure  better,  we  may  better 
know  how  to  take  care  of  them. 

The  teeth  are  not  set  into  the  jaw-bone 
itself,  although  they  appear  to  be  so  ;  but  into 
a  bony  appendage,  which  is  called  the  alveo- 
lar process,  which  forms  the  true  sockets  of 
the  teeth.  These  sockets,  in  old  age,  and 
when  the  teeth  are  no  longer  contained  within 
them,  become  absorbed,  and  are  carried  away 
into  the  mass  of  circulating  fluids,  by  a  process 
yet  to  be  mentioned.  Hence  arises  that  flat- 
ness of  the  lower  jaw,  and  apparent  shrinking 
of  the  face,  which  we  observe  in  elderly  per- 
sons. 

Lake  the  rest  of  the  bones,  the  teeth  consist 
principally  of  earthy  substance — I  mean  lime. 
But  at  first,  we  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 


76  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

bones  in  us,  of  any  kind.  Some  have  begun 
to  be  a  little  solid,  others  have  not.  Where 
the  bones  afterwards  are,  we  find  a  piece  or 
lump  of  something  which  is  nearly  transparent, 
and  more  like  jelly  than  bone.  This  in  time 
ossifies,  that  is,  becomes  solid,  and  thus  forms 
bone. 

GROWTH  OF  THE  TEETH. — The  teeth,  as 
well  as  the  other  bones,  are  at  first  mere 
pieces  of  jelly.  They  do  not  appear  at  birth, 
for  they  are  in  the  jaw-bone.  And  what  may 
seem  strange  to  you,  the  lumps  of  jelly-like 
substance  which  make  loth  sets  of  teeth, 
(those  which  are  shed  early,  and  also  those 
which  come  afterwards  in  their  place,)  are 
there  at  the  same  time ;  the  former  near  the 
edge  of  the  jaw-bone,  and  the  latter  a  little 
deeper  within  it. 

It. will  greatly  help  you  in  understanding 
me,  if  you  examine  the  following  engraving. 
It  shows  the  teeth  as  they  appear  in  a  child, 
before  he  has  shed  many  of  the  first  set.  Near 
the  roots  of  the  regular  teeth,  you  will  see 
the  beginning  of  some  of  the  second  growth. 


THE    CUPOLA. 


77 


When  the  soft  pieces  of  jelly  which  form 
the  teeth  become  bone,  the  process  is  as  fol- 
lows : — First,  a  hard  speck  commences  in  the 
centre  of  a  tooth,  which  is  deposited  by  the 
blood-vessels  which  nourish  it ;  and  this  gradu 
ally  grows  larger,  till  all  the  jelly  is  absorbed 
and  gone,  and  its  place  occupied  by  bone. 

The  teeth,  however,  consist  of  something 
else  besides  solid  bone.  If  they  did  not,  they 
would  very  soon  wear  out.  Do  you  think  a 
piece  of  common  bone  put  in  the  place  of  a 
tooth,  would  last  us  to  chew  with  half  a  cen- 
tury or  more  ?  By  no  means,  you  will  say. 
I  will  therefore  now  tell  you  of  the 

7* 


78  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

STRUCTURE  OF  THE  TEETH. — Each  tooth 
consists  of  three  parts — the  crown,  the  neck, 
and  the  fang.  The  fang  or  root  is  the  part 
which  is  set  firmly  in  the  jaw-bone,  as  if  it 
were  driven  in  like  a  nail.  The  neck  is  close 
to  the  edge  of  the  jaw,  where  the  skin  or 
membrane  which  covers  the  jaw-bone  joins  to 
the  tooth  and  adheres  to  it.  It  is  this  mem- 
brane which  the  dentist  separates  from  the 
tooth  with  his  lancet,  when  he  is  about  to 
extract  it.  The  tooth  is  a  little  smaller  here, 
like  a  neck,  or  as  if  a  cord  had  been  tied 
tightly  around,  and  indented  it.  The  crown 
or  body  of  the  tooth  is  that  part  which  we  see 
above  the  gum.  Every  tooth  has  blood,  and 
feeling  in  it ;  but  of  this  I  cannot  tell  you  the 
particulars  now.  You  will  find  more  about  it 
in  another  chapter. 

Now  to  prevent  the  teeth  from  wearing  out, 
as  a  piece  of  common  bone  would,  this  crown 
is  coated  all  over  with  something  much  harder 
than  any  bone  in  the  human  body.  It  is 
called  enamel. 

USES  OF  THE  TEETH. — Hard  as  it  is, 
however,  enamel  will  wear  out  in  time.  It 


THE    CUPOLA.  79 

will  wear  out  much  sooner,  if  we  pick  the 
teeth,  as  many  do,  with  pins  and  needles. 
These  things  are  too  hard,  even  for  the  hard 
enamel,  and  are  apt  to  crumble  it  off.  So  is 
the  wretched  practice  of  cracking  nuts  with 
the  teeth,  or  indeed  the  biting  of  any  substance 
harder  than  the  crust  of  good  dry  bread.  If 
used  to  bite  nothing  harder  than  that,  and  if 
not  injured  in  any  other  way — for  there  are  a 
thousand  ways  of  injuring  the  teeth — they 
may  perhaps  last  all  our  lives.  But  if  the 
enamel  once  gets  broken  away,  so  that  air  and 
other  substances  come  to  the  softer  bone  under 
it,  the  tooth  soon  becomes  hollow,  or  decays. 
Like  any  other  part  of  this  \vonderful  frame 
which  God  has  given  us,  the  teeth  will,  how- 
ever, last  the  longer  for  being  moderately  used. 

Those  kinds  of  food  and  drink  which  injure 
the  stomach,  injure  also  the  teeth,  and  cause 
the  enamel  to  become  soft,  and  break  away. 
Why  this  is  so,  is  a  question  which  it  would 
take  too  long  to  answer  here  ;  but  you  may 
believe  the  fact.  In  another  place,  I  shall 
probably  say  more  on  this  subject. 

One  thing  more,  however.  The  teeth 
must  be  kept  perfectly  clean.  After  eating 


80  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

anything,  always  rinse  them  well.  And  if 
you  rub  them  with  a  soft  brush  several  times  a 
day,  it  will  do  some  good  in  the  way  of  pre- 
serving them,  and  prove  a  means  of  saving  you 
from  the  racking  torments  of  the  toothache. 

BONES  or  THE  EAR.— Hardly  any  part  of 
the  wonderful  machinery  of  the  human  body 
is  more  difficult  to  understand,  than  the  struc- 
ture and  uses  of  the  organ  whose  bony  part  I 
am  about  to  describe.  About  three  quarters 
of  an  inch  or  an  inch  within  each  of  the  two 
side  doors  of  the  cupola — the  ears — is  a  film 
or  membrane  drawn  tightly  across  the  passage, 
like  a  drum  head.  This  is  called  the  mem- 
brane of  the  tympanum — tympanum  being  the 
Latin  word  for  drum  ;  and  a  cavity  behind  the 
membrane  is  called  the  tympanum. 


In  this  latter  cavity  are  four  small  bones, 
which  are  undoubtedly,  in  some  way  or  other, 


;>        THE    CUPOLA.  81 

concerned  with  the  sense  of  hearing.  Sounds 
reach  the  brain  through  the  passage  of  the 
ear ;  and  if  there  were  no  ear,  we  should  hear 
no  sound.  HE  who  made  the  ear  for  sound 
doubtless  made  all  parts  of  it,  and  there  is 
reason  to  believe  every  part  of  it  is  useful. 

The  bone  at  a  is  called  the  malleus,  because 
it  has  been  supposed  to  resemble  a  mallet  or 
hammer ;  but  it  looks  as  much  like  a  crooked 
club,  with  a  branch  sticking  out  from  it,  as 
like  either.  It  is  close  to  the  membrane  of 
the  tympanum,  and  touches  it. 

The  incus,  or  anvil,  (6,)  is  the  next.  I 
think  it  looks  as  much  like  one  of  the  smaller 
double  teeth  as  like  an  anvil. 

A  little  farther  on  is  the  little  ring,  (c.)  It 
is  very  small,  and  seems  to  connect  the  incus 
with  the  stirrup.  Anatomists,  however,  do 
not  call  it  a  ring.  They  call  it  by  the  hard 
name  of  os  orbiculare.  Os  means  bone,  and 
orbiculare  means  ring-shaped. 

The  stapes,  or  stirrup,  (d,)  you  cannot 
help  knowing  by  its  shape.  It  is  the  farthest 
within  the  head. 

This  little  chain  of  bones  is  stretched  along 
in  the  passage  from  the  outside  towards  the 


82  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

inside  of  the  head,  beginning  at  the  tympa- 
num, and  ending  at  a  small  opening  at  a  con- 
siderable distance  within  the  head.  They 
stand  in  the  engraving  nearly  as  they  do  in  the 
right  ear  of  a  person,  with  the  malleus  outward, 
and  the  stapes  inward  toward  the  brain. 

'-,>  ••    « •  •        "•'  •:-    '*  ' •'  '     •   .'. '.'  y   i.  .'•  ' 

BONE  OF  THE  THROAT. — It  is  proper  to 
mention,  in  this  place,  that  there  is  a  curious 
little  bone  inside  of  the  neck,  near  the  root 
of  the  tongue,  called  the  hyoides,  or  os  hyoides. 
This  little  member  has  been  supposed  to  re- 
semble the  Greek  letter  v,  but  it  appears  to 
resemble  our  own  letter  u  nearly  as  much. 
You  will  examine  it  for  yourselves. 


This  bone  has  something  to  do  with  keeping 
in  their  proper  places  the  parts  of  the  body 
which  are  concerned  in  speaking,  chewing, 
swallowing,  &c. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


t  THE  HINGES.         ; 

The  hip  joint.  Shoulder  joint.  Elbow  joint.  Liga- 
ments. Capsules.  Wear  of  the  joints.  Synovia. 
Abuses  of  the  joints. 

THE  house  I  live  in  differs  in  some  respects, 
as  you  have  already  seen,  from  many  other 
buildings.  I  will  mention  one  more  important 
point,  in  which  there  is  a  striking  difference. 

An  ordinary  building  of  wood,  brick,  or 
stone,  is  intended  to  stand  firmly,  and  for  some 
time.  No  part,  excepting  perhaps  the  doors 
and  windows,  is  made  for  motion.  The  ends 
of  the  parts  are  usually  fitted  together  by 
square  edged  joints,  with  the  greatest  exact- 
ness. Then  to  complete  the  whole,  and  make 
the  frame  as  firm  as  possible,  girders,  studs, 
braces,  &c.  are  added. 

There  are,  indeed,  a  few  parts  of  the  house 
I  occupy,  which  are  not  intended  to  move 


84  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

much  ;  but  in  general  the  reverse  is  the  case. 
Even  the  girders,  braces  and  studs  are  designed 
to  regulate  and  direct  motion,  but  not  to  pre- 
vent it  wholly.  And  the  joints,  instead  of 
being  framed  together  by  means  of  square 
tenons  and  deep  mortices,  and  kept  as  dry  as 
possible,  are  rounded  and  made  smooth,  and 
moistened  by  a  sort  of  oil,  to  fit  them  for  mo- 
tion, rather  than  to  hinder  it. 

There  are  indeed  a  few  joints — if  joints  they 
ought  to  be  called — which  are  firm  and  un- 
yielding. I  refer  to  the  teeth.  These,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  set  into  the  jaw-bones,  as  firmly 
as  tenons  are  into  mortices,  and  more  so.  They 
seem  to  stand  more  like  nails  or  spikes,  when 
they  are  driven  into  planks  or  timbers.  The 
bones  of  the  head,  too,  are  joined  firmly  to- 
gether in  adults,  as  you  have  already  been  told. 

Some  of  the  joints  of  the  human  frame  are 
real  hinges.  To  this  class  belong  the  knee 
joints,  the  joints  of  the  toes  and  fingers,  and 
those  of  the  elbow.  The  lower  jaw  may  also 
be  called  a  hinge  joint.  The  ankle  joints,  the 
joints  of  the  wrists,  and  indeed  many  others, 
sometimes  move  like  hinges,  but  they  perform 
other  and  very  different  motions  besides. 


THE    HINGES. 


85 


HIP  JOINT. — But  the  most  curious  joints  in 
the  human  frame  are  what  are  called  the  ball 
and  socket  joints.  The  more  important  of 
these  are,  the  shoulder  and  the  hip.  I  will 
show  you  a  plate  of  the  one  at  the  hip. 


At  a  you  see  the  deep  hollow  or  socket  in 
the  bone,  where  the  round  head  of  the  femur 
or  thigh  bone  moves.  This  round  head  is 
drawn  back  from  the  bottom  of  the  socket  a 
little  way,  in  order  to  show  the  round  ligament 
8 


86  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

near  a.  The  latter  is  a  very  tough,  strong 
cord,  fixed  by  one  end  at  the  bottom  of  the 
socket,  very  firmly ;  and  by  the  other,  fastened 
to  the  round  head  of  the  femur.  If  it  were 
not  for  this  ligament,  this  joint  would  be  dis- 
located, or  slipped  out  of  its  place,  a  thousand 
times  more  frequently  than  at  present,  for  it 
now  but  seldom  happens.  I  ought  also  to  say, 
that  there  is  a  tough,  gristly  rim  around  the 
socket  at  the  hip,  which  greatly  increases  its 
depth.  This  socket  is  called  the  acctabulum, 
or  vinegar  cup.  It  was  supposed,  as  I  ob- 
served before,  to  resemble  one  kind  of  vinegar 
cup  in  use  among  the  Romans. 

I  am  now  going  to  show  you  a  figure  of  an- 
other ball  and  socket  joint,  and  also  of  a  hinge 
joint — the  shoulder  and  the  elbow.  Every 
one  understands  the  nature  of  a  hin^e,  or  at 

O      ' 

least  may  easily  understand  it.  It  is  said  that 
the  first  mechanic  who  made  a  door  hinge 
took  the  idea  of  it  from  the  hinge  joint  of  some 
dead  animal ;  but  we  do  not  know  that  this 
notion  is  correct.  But  now  for  the  engraving. 


THE    HINGES. 


87 


I  will  first  describe  the  joint  of  the  elbow. 
The  lower  portion  of  the  arm  is  made  up  of 
two  bones  ;  one  larger,  called  the  ulna,  and 
another  smaller,  called  the  radius.  The  upper 
end  of  the  smaller  bone,  d,  is  a  little  rounded, 
and  lies  against  a  small  hollow  in  the  other 
bone,  the  ulna,  at  g,  to  which  it  is  tied  by 
cords,  called  ligaments,  particularly  by  one 
which  goes  .round  it  like  a  band.  The  ends 
of  these  two  bones,  thus  united,  turn  on  the 
end  of  the  upper  one,  which  is  rounded  and 


88  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

tipped  with  cartilage,  and  thus  fitted  for  the 
purpose,  as  you  may  see  at  f.  They  are 
kept  together  in  a  living  person,  (as  indeed  all 
bones  are,)  by  broad  and  short  straps  or  cords, 
called  ligaments,  which  adhere  to  each  end  of 
the  bone  a  little  way  from  the  joint,  and  are 
very  tight  and  strong,  and  yet  not  so  tight  as 
to  hinder  the  proper  degree  of  motion. 

But  a  ball  and  socket  joint  is,  if  possible, 
still  more  curious.  The  bone  which  is  repre- 
sented at  b,  is  the  scapula,  or  shoulder-blade. 
The  hollow  place  at  e,  is  the  socket  in  which 
the  round  end  or  ball  o,  of  the  upper  bone  of 
the  arm,  (the  humerus,)  plays  freely,  when 
the  arm  is  moved.  The  socket  is  so  shallow, 
and  the  ligaments  so  long,  in  order  to  enable 
us  to  make  almost  every  kind  of  motion  with 
our  arms,  that  it  is  much  more  easily  slipped 
out  of  joint  or  dislocated,  than  the  hinge  joints 
are.  Even  the  hip,  which  is  also  a  ball  and 
socket  joint,  has  a  much  deeper  socket ;  and  it 
is  partly  on  this  account,  and  partly  by  a 
different  arrangement  of  the  muscles,  that  we 
cannot  swing  our  legs  round  with  quite  as 
much  freedom  as  we  can  our  arms. 


THE    HINGES.  89 

But  though  the  shoulder  joint  is  pretty  easily 
dislocated,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  put  it  in  its  place 
again,  when  it  once  gets  out,  as  you  may 
imagine.  It  sometimes  requires  all  the  skill 
of  a  wise  surgeon,  and  all  the  strength  of  one 
or  two  strong  men. 

The  number  of  hinge  joints  and  other  joints 
in  the  frame  of  the  house  I  live  in  is  very 
great.  It  must  be  nearly  if  not  quite  a  hun- 
dred and  fifty.  I  do  not  think  there  are  many 
frames  that  have  more  hinges  in  them  than  the 
human. 

You  see  the  wisdom  of  the  great  Creator 
fully  displayed  in  this  structure  and  connection 
of  the  bones.  What  if  the  joint  of  the  knee 
would  move  in  every  direction,  like  that  of  the 
shoulder  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  when  we 
walked,  the  legs  would  have  dangled  about 
strangely,  instead  of  moving  backwards  and 
forwards  in  one  direction  only  ?  And  is  it  not 
plain  that  we  could  never  have  stood  firmly  on 
the  ground  ?  In  like  manner,  how  very  incon- 
venient it  would  have  been  to  have  our  finger 
joints  move  one  way  as  well  as  another ! 
How  confined  and  cramped,  moreover,  would 
have  been  the  motions  of  the  arm,  if  the 


90  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

shoulder  had  been  like  the  knee,  and  had  only 
permitted  the  arm  to  swing  backwards  and 
forwards,  without  our  being  able  to  carry  it 
outward  from  the  body  ! 

The  builders  of  machines  have  sometimes 
made  joints  in  their  machinery  very  much  like 
the  shoulder  joint ;  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
they  could  ever  have  contrived  them,  if  they 
had  not  first  looked  at  the  bones  of  man,  or 
some  other  animal ;  for  other  animals  have 
these  various  sorts  of  joints,  as  well  as  man. 

LIGAMENTS. — But  how  are  the  joints  held 
in  their  places  ?  For  when  we  take  up  a  bone 
which  has  lain,  perhaps  for  years,  bleaching  in 
the  sun  and  rain,  we  only  see  the  ends  smooth, 
and  some  of  them  hinge-like  ;  and  if  we  take 
up  two  such  bones,  and  put  them  together, 
they  will  not  stay  in  that  condition  a  moment, 
unless  they  are  fastened  by  strings  or  wires,  or 
something  of  the  kind.  How,  then,  are  they 
kept  together  in  the  living  person  ?  This  is 
what  1  am  now  about  to  tell  you. 

They  are  held  together  by  short  and  strong 
straps,  called  ligaments.  Some  of  them,  how- 
ever, are  quite  long,  and  begin  at  a  considera- 


THE    HINGES. 


91 


ble  distance,  say  an  inch  or  two,  from  the  very 
end  of  one  bone,  and  then,  after  passing  over 
the  joint,  are  fastened  into  the  next.  The 
strap  or  ligament  does  not  adhere  or  stick  to 
the  joint,  as  it  passes  loosely  over  it,  but  is 
only  fastened  strongly,  where  it  rises,  and 
where  it  is  inserted,  as  if  it  were  there  glued 
to  the  bone.  The  inside,  where,  in  crossing, 
it  lies  against  or  rests  gently  on  the  joint,  is 
very  smooth  ;  and  is  kept  moist  as  well  as 
smooth  ;  so  that  the  joint,  in  moving,  may  not 
grate  nor  wear  out. 


92  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

These  ligaments  are  white  and  shining,  but 
not  always  very  thick.  They  are  very  strong. 
Some  of  them  are  as  narrow  as  a  piece  of 
tape.  Others,  as  at  the  sides  of  the  knee  or 
the  shoulder,  are  very  wide.  Some  cross  each 
other,  as  at  the  knee.  The  latter  are  shown 
in  the  engraving.  There  are  others  still,  that 
go  all  round  the  joint,  and  completely  shut  it 
up.  It  is  as  if  the  ends  of  the  joints  were 
put  into  the  two  open  ends  of  a  short  cylinder, 
or  rather  of  a  short  bag  or  purse,  and  the  open 
ends  were  then  gathered  round,  and  fastened 
tightly  to  the  two  bones.  Do  you  not  see 
that,  in  this  way,  the  joint  would  be  com- 
pletely shut  up,  as  in  a  sack  ? 

CAPSULES. — These  bags  or  sacks  are  called 
capsules,  and  their  coverings,  that  is,  the  ma- 
terials of  which  they  are  formed,  capsular 
ligaments.  They  are  very  numerous  in  the 
human  body.  Their  use  is  to  keep  the  joint 
from  being  easily  slipped  out  or  dislocated. 
They  are  also  intended  for  another  purpose, 
scarcely  less  important — a  purpose  which 
shows,  in  a  striking  manner,  the  wisdom  of  the 
Creator  in  contriving  the  human  frame. 


THE    HINGES. 

The  wagoner  or  stage  driver  has  a  mixture 
of  tar,  or  perhaps  tar  and  oil,  some  of  which 
he  often  puts  upon  the  axle  of  his  carriage, 
where  the  wheel  turns  upon  it.  If  this  were 
not  done,  the  axletree  would  soon  become 
very  dry,  and  the  wheel  would  wear  it.  If 
the  carriage  were  driven  very  fast,  it  might 
happen  that  it  would  take  fire  ;  for  rubbing 
dry  wood  together,  as  you  know,  will  produce 
fire.  More  than  one  stage  coach  has  been  set 
on  fire,  in  this  way,  within  a  few  years. 

WEAR  OF  THE  JOINTS. — Now  what  pre- 
vents the  joints  of  the  human  body  from  wear- 
ing out  rapidly,  in  the  same  manner,  when  we 
walk  much,  or  run  swiftly  ? 

The  Father  of  the  universe  is  the  preserver 
as  well  as  the  creator  of  this  "  wondrous 
frame."  Were  there  not  something  done  to 
keep  these  joints  oiled,  if  I  may  so  call  it, 
they  would  not  last  long.  Take  the  knee,  for 
example,  and  think  what  a  vast  deal  of  friction 
or  rubbing  together  of  the  end  of  the  thigh- 
bone and  of  the  two  leg  bones,  there  must  be  ! 

A  traveller  probably  swings  each  leg,  in 
walking,  about  1200  times  in  a  mile.  If  he 


94  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

should  travel  40  miles  a  day — and  many  travel 
more  than  this— it  would  be  48,000  times  a 
day.  If  he  should  continue  to  walk  only  40 
miles  a  day,  all  the  year  except  Sundays,  he 
would,  at  the  same  rate,  swing  each  knee 
15,024,000  times. 

If  he  should  perform  the  latter  feat  every 
year,  from  the  time  he  was  20  years  old  till  he 
was  70,  or  a  period  of  half  a  century,  the 
number  of  movements  would  be  751,200,000  ! 

"  A  continual  dropping,"  it  is  said,  and  it 
means  dropping  of  water,  "  will  wear  away  a 
rock  ;  "  and  the  saying,  though  old,  is  true. 
And  this  continued  rubbing  of  the  bones  of 
the  knee  together,  if  they  were  allowed  to  get 
dry,  would  wear  them  so  much  in  a  single  day, 
that  we  should  hear  a  grating  noise  at  every 
step,  long  before  night.  And,  in  a  very  few 
days,  the  bones  would  be  completely  worn  out, 
and  unfit  for  use.  I  question  if  they  would 
last  even  a  whole  day.  Iron  or  steel,  or  even 
the  hardest  thing  you  can  think  of  in  the 
world,  would  wear  out  in  a  very  short  time. 
What,  then,  can  be  the  reason  why  the  knees 
and  other  joints  do  not  wear  out  ?  There  is 
no  place  to  put  in  tar  or  oil  to  prevent  it. 


THE    HINGES.  95 

SYNOVIA. — I  have  said  that  many  of  the 
joints  are  completely  shut  up,  as  if  by  a  sack. 
Now  the  Author  of  the  frame  has  so  contrived 
it,  that  a  substance  called  synovia,  which  an- 
swers all  the  purposes  of  oil  or  tar,  continually 
oozes  out  on  the  inside  of  the  ligaments  at  the 
joints,  and  keeps  the  ligaments  themselves, 
and  the  joints,  soft  and  moist.  Can  anything 
be  more  curious  ?  Can  anything  prove,  more 
clearly,  a  great  Designer,  or,  as  I  might  say,  a 
great  Master  Builder. 

One  thing  may  be  advantageously  remem- 
bered. The  synovia  or  liquor  which  thus- 
oozes  out  to  lubricate  the  joints,  will  be  of  just 
the  right  quality  and  quantity  if  we  are  irr 
the  most  perfect  health.  If  we  are  unwell, 
there  may  be  too  little  or  too  much,  or  it  may 
be  too  thick  or  too  thin.  When  we  use  food 
or  drink  that  is  too  heating  or  irritating,  it 
seems  to  dry  the  blood  ;  and,  after  a  while, 
the  synovia  will  become  less  in  quantity,  or  of 
poorer  quality.  Persons  who  use  much  spirits 
or  opium,  or  eat  improper  or  heating  food,  are 
very  apt,  in  the  end,  to  have  a  grating  in  their 
knees  and  other  joints,  when  they  move. 


96  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Such  persons  often  go  to  the  "  doctor "  to 
inquire  what  the  matter  is  ;  but  they  might  as 
well  take  care  of  themselves.  Prevention — 
where  we  can  prevent  any  evil — is  always 
better  than  cure.  Those  who  live  on  a  mode- 
rate quantity  of  plain  food,  and  drink  pure 
water,  and  work  at  something  steadily,  but 
moderately,  rarely  have  any  trouble  of  this  sort. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  ligaments  hold  the 
joints  together.  They  do  \  but  the  tendons  or 
straps,  which  go  off  from  the  ends  of  the  mus- 
cles, and  are  fastened  into  the  bones  around 
their  joints,  help  greatly  to  hold  them  together. 
There  are  some  very  ingenious  contrivances  to 
keep  the  joints  firm  and  yet  movable,  which  I 
cannot  describe  now. 

ABUSES  OF  THE  JOINTS. — That  the  great 
Creator  made  the  joints  to  be  used,  is  proved 
from  their  curious  structure,  and  from  the  sub- 
stance prepared  to  moisten  them  ;  but  that 
they  were  not  made  to  be  used  too  violently  is 
also  proved  by  the  fact  that  if  thus  used,  they 
become  diseased.  Sometimes  the  liquor  called 
synovia  dries  away  ;  in  these  cases,  we  hear 
the  grating  sound  already  mentioned ;  at  oth- 


THE    HINGES.  97 

ers,  the  joints  become  painful,  or  perhaps  swell. 
It  is  but  seldom,  however,  that  they  become 
diseased  from  mere  walking,  if  we  walk  ever  so 
much,  unless  we  are  intemperate  or  otherwise 
irregular  in  our  habits. 

One  of  the  worst  abuses  of  the  joints  is  by 
wrestling.  I  have  seen  a  great  many  famous 
wrestlers,  who,  when  they  became  old,  had 
stiff,  or  lame,  or  swelled  knees  or  hips.  They 
were  tortured  almost  to  death  with  these  com- 
plaints. Sometimes  the  physician  calls  the 
complaint  gout,  sometimes  rheumatism. 

No  doubt  people  have  both  the  gout  and  the 
rheumatism  from  other  causes  besides  wrestling, 
such  as  catching  cold,  excess  in  eating  and 
drinking,  the  use  of  spirits,  tobacco,  &LC.,  &c. 
But  it  often  happens  that  wrestling,  when  it 
does  not  produce  all  the  mischief,  unites  with 
other  causes  to  produce  it ;  and  it  sometimes 
does  the  whole.  In  fact,  no  person  can  use 
his  joints  with  very  great  violence,  either  in 
wrestling  or  in  hard  labor,  without  suffering 
from  it,  especially  when  he  becomes  old,  if  he 
lives  to  see  old  age  ;  which,  in  such  cases,  is 
not  very  common. 
9 


CHAPTER  IX. 


REVIEW. 

Number  of  bones.    Skeletons,    Anatomy.    Physiology. 
Uses  of  benes. 

NUMBER  OF  BONES,  —  Let  us  here  sum  up 
or  review  what  we  have  learned.  This  is 
always  important  in  the  pursuit  of  any  study. 
Some  teachers  review  every  week,  and  some 
oftener  still.  Your  parents  or  teachers,  while 
you  are  studying  this  work,  will,  I  hope,  re- 
quire you  to  review  at  the  end  of  every 
chapter. 

The  cranium,  or  part  of  the  head  which 
holds  the  brain,  consists  of  eight  different 
bones.  There  are  fourteen  bones  of  the  face, 
besides  thirty-two  teeth.  Then  there  are  four 
very  sm^ll  bones  in  each  ear,  and  one  at  the 
root  of  the  tongue.  Thus  the  whole  head, 
above  the  neck,  contains  sixty-three  bones. 
The  neck  has  seven  ;  but  as  these  form  the 


REVIEW.  99 

upper  part  of  the  spine,  they  are  usually 
reckoned  with  those  of  the  body. 

The  spine,  or  back-bone,  contains  twenty- 
four  pieces,  called  vertebrae ;  and  between 
these  and  the  lower  extremities  are  four  bones 
more.  There  are  twenty-four  ribs,  that  is, 
twelve  on  each  side,  and  a  breast  bone,  or 
sternum,  down  the  middle  of  the  front.  Thus 
the  whole  of  what  we  commonly  call  the  body, 
contains  fifty-three  bones. 

The  whole  upper  extremity,  including  the 
hand,  arm,  clavicle,  or  collar  bone,  and  sca- 
pula, or  shoulder  blade,  consists  of  thirty-two 
pieces,  or  sixty-four  on  both  sides.  Each 
lower  extremity  includes  thirty  bones ;  and 
thus  both  together  make  sixty,  besides  the 
small  sesamoid  bones. 

Now  if  we  add  together  these  several  sums, 
we  shall  find  the  amount  two  hundred  and 
forty.  A  complete  human  skeleton,  then, 
would  contain  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
forty  bones  !  Who  would  suppose  so,  from 
the  mere  view^  of  an  individual,  while  in  the 
act  of  standing  !  But  when  we  come  to  see 
him  walking,  or  in  motion  otherwise,  we  begin 
to  find  he  has  a  great  many  joints  in  him,  and 


100  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

of  course  a  great  many  bones.  At  every 
part  of  the  body  where  the  bones  meet,  there 
is  more  or  less  of  motion,  (excepting  at  the 
junction  of  the  several  portions  forming  the 
head,  face,  teeth  and  hips,)  and  these  may  all 
be  moved  in  nearly  the  same  instant.  Thus 
there  are,  in  the  human  frame,  about  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  joints. 

We  may  indeed  add  to  this  number  the 
small  sesamoid  bones,  found  in  the  thumbs 
and  great  toes  of  older  persons,  and  some- 
what resembling  the  knee-pan  in  shape,  but 
very  diminutive  in  size.  Of  these  there  are 
often  two  in  each  large  joint  of  the  great  toe, 
and  as  many  in  the  large  joint  of  each  thumb. 
Adding  these,  then,  to  the  two  hundred  and 
forty,  we  should  have  for  the  whole  number 
of  bones  in  the  human  frame,  two  hundred 
and  forty-eight. 

Some  make  the  number  about  two  hundred 
and  sixty ;  but  in  order  to  this,  they  reckon 
fourteen  sesamoid  bones.  It  should  be  re- 
membered that  the  number  of  the  sesamoid 
bones  varies  greatly  in  different  persons,  al- 
though nearly  all  adults  have  some  of  them. 
They  are  hardly  ever  larger  than  half  a  pea. 


REVIEW.  101 

Some  individuals  have  them  in  other  parts  of 
the  body,  besides  those  already  mentioned. 

We  may  remember  also  that  some  persons 
have  two  small  fragments  of  bone  in  the  skull, 
separate  from  the  rest,  called  ossa  wormiana. 
They  are  irregular  in  shape,  and  seldom  larger 
than  a  good  sized  bean. 

It  should  also  be  observed,  that  there  is  a 
small  fragment  of  something  which  is  bony 
in  its  appearance,  usually  found  in  the  very 
middle  of  the  soft  part  of  the  brain.  What 
the  use  of  it  is,  nobody  knows,  except  the 
Creator. 

Besides  all  this,  the  breast  bone,  the  ossa 
innorninata,  and  many  other  bones  of  the 
body,  are  in  several  pieces,  while  we  are 
young ;  and  some  of  them  are  not  very  strongly 
united,  even  when  we  are  old. 

Some  few  individuals  may  be  found,  who 
have  a  still  greater  number  of  bones  ;  but 
these  are  properly  diseased  persons.  A  bony 
or  chalky  substance  is  often  found  in  the  flesh 
of  those  who  have  the  gout.  Some  of  the 
gristly  parts  of  the  body — I  mean  the  carti- 
lages and  ligaments — occasionally  change  into 
bone ;  and  so  do  small  portions  of  the  great 
9* 


109 


THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 


arteries,  or  tubes  which  carry  the  blood.  In 
some  diseases,  too,  the  bones  become  soft  and 
bend,  or  separate  into  several  pieces. .  Here 
and  there  we  find  a  person  with  six  fingers  on 
each  hand,  or  six  toes  on  each  foot,  and 
sometimes  with  both  ;  but  these  supernume- 
rary fingers  and  toes  do  not  always  have 
bones  in  them. 

SKELETONS. — When  the  bones  of  a  human 
being  or  any  other  animal  are  put  together, 
and  fastened  to  each  other  by  pieces  of  wire, 
the  whole  is  called  a  skeleton. 

There  is  another  kind  of  skeleton,  but  it  is 
not  so  common.  It  is  made  by  stripping  off 
all  the  soft  parts  of  the  body,  excepting  the 
ligaments ;  these  are  suffered  to  remain.  The 
whole  is  then  very  thoroughly  dried.  This 
saves  the  trouble  of  having  wires. 

The  engraving  on  the  next  page  represents 
the  human  skeleton  fastened  together  by  wires, 
in  the  usual  manner.  It  is  represented  in  this 
posture,  in  order  to  give  you  a  different  view 
from  that  opposite  the  title-page. 


REVIEW. 


103 


ANATOMY. — The  study  of  the  nature  and 
structure  of  the  bones,  and  nothing  but  the 
bones,  is  called  osteology ;  that  of  the  muscles, 
and  nothing  else,  myology,  &c.  But  as  most 


104  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

people  who  study  these  go  farther,  and  learn 
also  the  shape  and  structure  of  the  heart,  the 
lungs,  the  brain,  the  blood-vessels,  and,  in 
fact,  all  parts  of  the  body,  some  more  general 
name  would  seern  necessary  for  what  they  do. 
So  we  say  of  those  who  study  all  parts  of  the 
human  body  just  as  it  appears  the  moment  the 
soul  leaves  it — bones,  muscles,  tendons,  brain, 
nerves,  heart,  blood-vessels,  lungs,  skin,  &c., 
that  they  are  studying  Anatomy. 

PHYSIOLOGY. — Physiology  is  something  more 
than  all  this.  It  is  the  study  of  the  living 
animal ;  how  the  heart,  the  brain,  the  eye, 
the  ear,  the  muscles,  the  bones,  and  every 
other  part  act — and  their  uses  ;  and  an  inter- 
esting study  it  is,  too.  David,  the  king,  pro- 
bably believed  so  when,  after  thinking  about 
the  curious  structure  of  his  own  body,  he 
exclaimed — "  I  am  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made." 

King  David,  however,  had  probably  never 
seen  a  complete  human  skeleton  ;  for  in  those 
days,  if  was  generally  thought  very  wrong  to 
use  the  dead  body  of  a  human  being  for  any 
such  purpose.  Sometimes,  however,  they 


REVIEW.  105 

used  parts  of  domestic  animals — dogs,  oxen, 
&c. — which  were  of  some  little  service.  But 
of  late  years,  many  people  think  it  quite  right 
to  examine  and  dissect  (separate)  human 
bodies  after  death,  if  by  so  doing  they  can 
learn  how  to  cure  or  prevent  the  diseases  of 
the  living ;  not  very  often,  to  be  sure  ;  and 
only  the  bodies  of  criminals,  such  as  have  no 
friends,  relatives,  &,c. 

In  making  this  little  book,  it  is  my  object 
to  teach  you  something  of  both  Anatomy  and 
Physiology.  What  I  have  taught  you  thus 
far  has  been  chiefly  Anatomy. 

The  remaining  chapters  will  embrace  much 
more  of  Physiology.  It  is  a  subject  which  it 
will  be  a  little  more  difficult  for  you  to  under- 
stand than  Anatomy ;  but  it  will  also  be 
much  more  pleasant,  when  once  understood. 
There  are  many  wonderful  things  to  be  told 
about  the  human  body. 

USES  OF  BONES. — Before  I  close  this  chap- 
ter, you  must  just  allow  me  to  say,  that  bones 
are  often  used  in  the  arts.  Ivory  is  nothing 
but  bone — the  teeth  of  the  elephant.  The 
bones  of  man,  so  far  as  I  know,  have  not 


106      '  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

been  often  used  in  the  arts.  They  have 
usually  been  either  burned  up,  as  in  some  of 
the  eastern  countries,  or  left  to  decay  in  the 
grave,  as  in  our  own. 

The  shells  of  many  of  the  testaceous  and 
crust aceous  animals  are  of  very  great  value. 
Such  are  the  tortoise  shell,  the  pearl,  &c. 
Of  tortoise  shell  combs,  and  pearl  buttons, 
you  must  all,  I  suppose,  have  heard  ;  and  most 
of  you  have  seen  them. 

The  handles  of  many  kinds  of  knives  and 
forks,  as  well  as  a  great  number  of  little  arti- 
cles which  are  used  every  day,  are  made  of 
bone.  Ivory  is  the  tooth  of  the  elephant; 
and  whalebone  is  from  the  jaws  of  that  enor- 
mous sea  animal,  the  whale.  From  the  horns 
of  animals  are  made  combs,  lanterns,  whip 
handles,  &c. 

The  bones  and  shells  of  animals  serve  not 
only  as  a  support  to  their  softer  parts,  but  also 
as  a  defence.  What  would  become  of  the 
tender  frame  of  the  poor  tortoise,  lobster,  crab 
and  oyster,  if  they  were  not  covered  over,  as 
with  a  shield,  by  a  hard  buckler  of  shell  ? 
The  soft  parts  of  the  human  body,  especially 
what  we  call  the  vital  organs,  are,  in  many 


REVIEW.  107 

instances,  well  defended  by  the  solid  frame  on 
the  outside  of  them,  in  the  same  manner. 
Such  are  the  brain,  the  spinal  marrow,  the 
lungs,  the  heart  and  the  liver. 

Now  one  principal  part  of  all  the  shells  of 
animals  is  lime  ;  so  that  there  is  not  so  much 
difference  between  the  bones  of  man  and  the 
shell  of  the  tortoise  or  the  lobster,  as  you  may 
have  supposed,  though  the  color  is  somewhat 
different.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the 
lobster  shell  is  lime  ;  in  the  tortoise  shell,  the 
proportion  is  small.  Horn  has  but  a  very 
little  lime  in  it.  Bones,  as  I  have  already 
observed,  contain  a  very  large  proportion  of 
this  substance. 

There  is  one  use  made  of  the  bones  of  the 
human  frame,  which  it  is  rather  shocking  to 
think  of.  It  is  well  known  that  the  bones  of 
other  animals  make  a  very  excellent  manure, 
for  enriching  the  soil.  The  Germans  have 
long  used  bones  as  a  manure,  in  their  bof 
houses.  It  is  not,  however,  very  generally 
known,  I  believe,  that  the  bones  of  men  are 
used  for  this  purpose. 

Some  of  you  have  read,  I  suppose,  about 
the  great  battles  which  were  fought  in  Ger- 


108  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

many  and  France  many  years  ago,  in  the  days 
of  Bonaparte,  when  thousands  of  men  were 
often  left  dead  on  the  field,  and  their  bones 
afterwards  almost  covered  the  ground. 

Within  a  few  years,  these  human  bones,  it 
is  stated,  have  been  brought  to  England,  and 
ground  by  means  of  steam-engines  and  other 
powerful  machinery,  and  used  as  manure.  It 
is  computed  that  in  1832,  a  million  of  bushels 
of  bones  of  men  and  horses  were  brought 
from  the  continent  over  to  England,  and  used 
by  the  farmers  of  Yorkshire,  Nottinghamshire, 
and  the  neighboring  counties. 

In  this  country,  the  consequences  of  war 
have  not  yet  been  dreadful  enough  to  render 
bones  very  abundant  or  cheap.  The  bodies  of 
men  slain  in  war,  as  well  as  of  those  who  have 
died  in  peace,  have  in  general  been  decently 
buried.  May  we  not  hope  that  our  country  will 
never  be  deluged  with  blood  and  covered  with 
bones,  as  some  of  the  countries  of  Europe 
and  Asia  have  been  ?  May  xve  not  hope  that 
at  our  death,  our  bodies  will  be  buried  quietly 
in  the  usual  manner — "  ashes  "  returning  "  to 
ashes," — "  dust  to  dust," — and  the  soul  to 
the  "  God  who  gave  it  ?  " 


CHAPTER  X. 


COVERING  OF  THE  HOUSE. 

The  periosteum.  The  muscles.  The  tendons.  Struc- 
ture of  the  muscles.  Action  of  muscles.  Illustra- 
tions. About  fat.  Reflections'.  • 

THE  coveting  of  the  house  I  live  in  differs 
more  from  that  of  other  buildings — that  is, 
possesses  more  peculiarities— -than  any  other 
part  of  it ;  though  every  part  of  it  is  admira- 
ble. It  differs  from  ordinary  buildings  in  con- 
taining no  sharp  corners  or  square  edges  ;  for 
everything,  even  the  smallest  part,  is  more 
or  less  rounded.  It  is  as  if  the  divine  Archi- 
tect had  regarded  roundness  as  a  beauty, 
and  squareness  a  deformity,  in  the  animal 
and  vegetable  world  ;  while,  on  the  contrary, 
square  sides>  square  edges  and  sharp  corners 
appear,  in  human  architecture,  to  be  pecu- 
liarly beautiful.  Not  only  are  single  buildings 
erected  with  regard  to  squareness  of  form,  but 
whole  towns  and  cities. 
10 


110  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

THE  PERIOSTEUM. — How  different  is  the 
structure  of  the  house  I  live  in !  Every  bone 
in  the  frame,  as  if  to  prevent  the  possibility 
of  having  any  rough  sides  or  corners,  is  neatly 
covered  with  a  very  thin  membranous  sub- 
stance, which  is  called  the  periosteum.  Peri 
means  around,  and  osteum  means  the  bone  or 
bones. 

There  is  a  plain  reason  for  this  periosteum 
being  provided.  The  frames  of  our  common 
buildings  are  made  to  stand  firmly  ;  they  are 
not  intended  for  motion  ;  while  the  frame,  and 
almost  every  part  of  the  human  body,  is  made 
to  move.  But  where  there  is  motion,  it  is 
desirable  that  the  parts  should  be  rounded  as 
much  as  possible  ;  and  eveiy  possible  pains 
taken  to  prevent  friction  or  wearing. 

After  every  bone*  is  covered  over  with  this 
thin  substance — the  periosteum — we  have  next 
the  muscles  and  tendons.  It  is  the  muscles 

*  Or  rather,  every  bone  except  the  teeth.  The  teeth, 
where  they  stand  out  of  the  gums,  are  covered  with 
enamel.  A  thin  membrane  like  the  periosteum,  would  do 
no  good,  as  it  would  soon  wear  out  in  eating.  The  ends 
of  the  bones  also,  where  they  rub  against  each  other — 
I  mean  at  the  joints — are  covered  with  a  white,  elastics 
substance,  which  is  not  exactly  like  the  periosteum. 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  Ill 

generally,  which  give  roundness  and  beauty 
to  the  human  body  and  limbs.  A  large  num- 
ber of  them  are  situated  on  the  bones,  espe- 
cially the  iong  bones  ;  but  a  few  are  extended 
between  them.  The  bones  are  generally 
smallest  in  the  middle,  and  increase  in  size 
towards  the  extremities,  at  the  joints  ;  but  the 
muscles  are  usually  the  reverse  of  this.  They 
are  largest  towards  the  middle  of  the  bones, 
and  grow  smaller  towards  their  extremities. 

We  have  a  striking  example  of  what  I  have 
just  stated,  in  the  case  of  the  arms.  The 
bones  of  the  arm,  as  seen  in  the  skeleton,  are 
so  large  at  the  joints,  and  so  small  in  the  mid- 
dle, as  to  make  the  limb  appear  almost  ugly. 
But  when  we  come  to  see  it  dressed  up  with 
muscles,  and  covered  with  the  skin,  it  is  very 
well  proportioned.  The  elbow,  in  most  per- 
sons, is  scarcely  larger  than  the  arm  is,  both 
above  and  below  it ;  and  this  is  caused,  as  I 
have  said  before,  by  the  muscles.  They  are 
larger  where  the  bones  are  smaller,  and  grow 
smaller  till  they  come  near  the  joints,  where 
they  run  into  tendons. 

But  before  I  go  farther,  I  must  tell  you 
what  muscles  and  tendons  are. 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

THE  MUSCLES. — The  muscles  are  the  lean 
part  of  the  flesh.  They  are,  as  you  have 
probably  observed,  of  a  reddish  color.  The 
red  color  is  caused  by  the  blood  in  them  ;  for 
it  is  not  only  true  that  blood,  in  small  veins 
and  arteries,  runs  through  them  in  every  direc- 
tion, but  it  also  tinges  their  whole  substance, 
We  know  this  is  so,  because  when  the  muscles 
have  been  soaked  and  boiled  for  some  time, 
their  redness  disappears.  Even  when  boiled 
for  the  table,  the  muscular  parts  of  animals 
are  of  a  paler  red  than  when  they  were  first 
separated  from  the  mass  of  flesh  to  which 
they  belonged, 

THE  TENDONS. — Some  of  the  muscles  are 
fastened  at  once  to  the  bones,  and  grow,  as  it 
were,  into  them.  In  this  case,  the  covering 
of  the  bones,  or  periosteum,  seems  like  a  kind 
of  glue,  intended  to  cement  the  muscle  and 
bone  together.  But,  in  general,  the  muscles 
are  not  themselves  fastened  to  the  bone,  but 
terminate  towards  each  end  by  one  or  more 
tendons.  These  tendons  are  white,  flattened 
substances,  like  belts  or  straps,  and  are  very 
tough  and  unyielding.  When  boiled  with  tho 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  113 

muscle  to  which  they  are  attached,  they  are 
sometimes  called  whit-leather ;  and  it  is  al- 
most as  difficult  to  break  them  to  pieces  with 
our  teeth,  as  if  they  were  of  real  leather. 
The  muscles,  then,  usually  terminate  in  ten- 
dons, and  it  is  the  latter  which  grow  to  the 
bone ;  though  the  muscles  sometimes  adhere 
to  the  bone  directly  at  one  end,  without  the 
help  of  tendons. 

STRUCTURE  OF  MUSCLES. — -The  substance 
of  the  muscle  is  thready  or  fibrous.  You 
have  probably  observed  that  a  piece  of  lean 
meats  when  boiled,  has  this  thready,  fibrous 
appearance  ;  but  there  is  one  thing  about  ihe 
muscles,  which  does  not  so  readily  appear 
after  boiling  as  it  does  before.  A  piece  of 
meat,  to  be  boiled,  is  usually  cut  off  in  such  a 
manner  that  it  takes  parts  of  several  different 
muscles  ;  and  the  whole,  in  this  way,  seems 
like  a  solid  or  nearly  solid  mass ;  whereas  it 
could  be  parted  out,  with  a  very  little  care, 
each  muscle  by  itself— though  not  so  easily 
after  cooking.  Such  is  the  case  with  a  piece 
of  flesh  taken  from  the  leg  of  the  ox ;  and 
such  would  be  the  case  with  a  piece  taken 


114  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

from  the  human  leg  or  arm.  These  separate 
muscles  are  connected  to  each  other  by  means 
of  what  is  called  the  cellular  substance — a  fine, 
woolly  sort  of  membrane,  which  I  shall  have 
occasion  to  describe  hereafter.  Each  thread 
or  fibre  of  each  muscle  is  also  connected  with 
each  other  fibre  which  lies  next  to  it,  by  the 
same  sort  of  cellular  or  woolly  membrane. 

Thus,  as  you  see,  a  mass  of  lean  flesh, 
such  as  we  boil,  and  such  as  we  see  on  cutting 
into  the  limbs  or  other  parts  of  an  animal, 
consists  of  smaller  bundles  of  flesh,  connected 
together  by  the  cellular  membrane,  but  not  so 
tightly  as  to  hinder  each  bundle  or  muscle 
frojn  moving  or  sliding  about  a  little  among 
the  rest.  Now  each  muscle,  in  like  manner, 
consists  of  a  great  multitude  of  fibres,  also 
connected  together  by  cellular  membrane.  It 
is  also  thought,  by  many  anatomists,  that  each 
fibre  is  made  up  of  a  great  many  smaller  fibres, 
so  small  as  not  to  be  seen  by  the  naked  eye. 

The  number  of  muscles  in  the  human  body 
is  very  great.  Anatomists  do  not  agree  about 
the  number,  because  there  are  many  which 
some  reckon  as  only  one  muscle,  while  others 
call  them  two,  (for  they  really  have  a  double 


COVERING    OF   THE    HOUSE.  115 

appearance ;)  and  because  a  few  are  so  small 
that  some  do  not  count  them  at  all.  They 
are  usually,  though  not  always,  arranged  in 
pairs;  that  is,  there  is  one  on  the  right  side 
of  the  body  exactly  like  one  on  the  left  side, 
opposite  to  it ;  and  so  on.  We  cannot  reckon 
the  whole  number  at  less  than  four  hundred 
and  fifty,  and  some  make  it  five  hundred  and 
twenty,  or  even  more. 

I  have  said  that  these  muscles — many  of 
them — end  in  tendons,  or  thin  whitish  straps. 
Sometimes  they  terminate  in  two  tendons. 
The  biceps  muscle,  (so  called  from  6i,  two, 
and  caputy  a  head,)  lies  on  the  front  part  of 
the  arm,  having  its  upper  end  fastened  to  the 
top  of  the  scapula,  or  shoulder  blade,  by  two 
tendons,  while  the  lower  end  is  attached  to 
the  upper  part  of  that  bone  of  the  fore  arm 
which  is  called  the  radius,  by  one  tendon  only. 

The  next  engraving  will  give  you  a  pretty 
correct  idea  of  the  shape  of  the  muscle  I  have 
just  been  speaking  of,  as  well  as  of  muscles 
and  tendons  in  general.  You  must  remember, 
however,  that  only  a  few  muscles  have  double 
tendons,  as  this  has  ;  and  that  they  are  far 
from  being  all  of  them  so  perfect  and  beauti- 


116 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


ful  as  this.     Some  are  quite  ill  shaped,  and 
irregular  in  their  appearance. 


You  will  perceive  in  the  figure,  at  a  short 
distance  from  the  bottom,  a  sort  of  square 
projection,  by  which  the  artist  meant  to  repre- 
sent a  small  portion  of  a  tendinous  expansion, 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  117 

or  sheath,  which  goes  off  at  this  part  of  the 
muscle,  and  dipping  or  turning  down  among, 
and  uniting  with  the  flesh  of  the  fore  arm, 
assists  in  binding  the  whole  together,  and  pre- 
serving a  unity  of  action. 

ACTION  OF  MUSCLES. — In  front  of  St.  Pe- 
ter's Church,  at  Rome,  stands  an  obelisk  of 
red  Egyptian  granite,  124  feet  high.  It  was 
brought  from  Egypt  to  Rome,  by  order  of  the 
Roman  Emperor  Caligula,  where  it  lay  partly 
buried  in  the  earth,  on  the  spot  where  it  was 
laid  down,  till  about  250  years  ago,  when 
Pope  Sixtus  V,  by  the  help  of  forty-one 
strong  pieces  of  machinery,  eight  hundred 
men,  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  horses,  in 
eight  days  succeeded  in  getting  it  out  of  the 
ground ;  but  ijt  took  four  months  more  to  re- 
move it  fifty  or  sixty  rods  farther,  to  its  pres- 
ent situation. 

When  they  had  at  length  reached  the  spot, 
the  grand  difficulty  was  to  raise  it.  They 
erected  a  pedestal  or  foot  piece,  shaped  like 
four  lions,  for  it  to  rest  on  ;  and  by  means  of 
powerful  machines  and  many  strong  ropes  and 
tackles,  they  placed  the  bottom  of  it  on  the 


118  THE    HOUSE    1    LIVE    IN. 

pedestal.  Then  they  began,  with  their  ma- 
chinery, to  raise  it.  But  when  it  was  nearly 
up,  so  that  it  would  almost  stand>  the  ropes, 
it  is  said,  had  stretched  so  much  more  than 
the  master  workman  expected,  that  it  would 
go  no  further. 

What  was  to  be  done  ?  Fontana,  the  mas- 
ter workman,  had  forbid  all  talking,  and  they 
now  stood  holding  upon  the  tackles  so  silently 
that  you  might  have  heard  a  whisper.  Sud^ 
denly  an  English  sailor  cried  out — "  Wet  the 
ropes."  This  was  no  sooner  said  than  done  ; 
when,  to  the  surprise  and  joy  of  everybody, 
the  ropes  shrunk  just  enough  to  raise  the 
obelisk  to  its  place,  where  it  has  now  stood 
nearly  250  years  ;  and  where  it  may  perhaps 
continue  to  stand  many  thousand  years,  unless 
an  earthquake  should  shake  it  down. 

You  will  probably  begin  to  wonder  what 
this  story  has  to  do  with  anatomy  and  physi- 
ology. I  will  tell  you.  The  muscles  are  the 
parts  by  means  of  which  we  move  our  heads, 
our  arms,  our  legs,  &c.  In  fact,  we  could 
not  so  much  as  move  a  finger,  or  any  part  of 
our  bodies,  without  them. 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  119 

But  they  move  these  parts  by  contracting, 
or  shrinking.  Being  fastened  to  the  bones  at 
each  end,  they  must,  if  they  shrink,  draw  one 
of  the  bones  to  which  they  are  strongly  fast- 
ened towards  the  other.  If  the  muscles  be- 
tween the  shoulder  and  elbow  shrink,  as  they 
will  whenever  we  wish  to  move  the  arm,  they 
must  either  draw  the  shoulder  towards  the 
elbow,  or  the  arm  below  the  elbow  towards 
the  shoulder.  You  can  judge  for  yourselves 
which  would  be  most  likely  to  happen. 

The  muscles  will  not  contract  or  shrink  a 
great  deal,  it  is  true  ;  but  they  will  do  so 
much  more,  in  proportion  to  their  length,  than 
wetted  ropes  can. 

ILLUSTRATIONS. — I  must  explain  this  mat- 
ter by  another  engraving.  Here  is  a  picture 
of  the  right  arm.  It  is  represented  as  if 
everything  had  been  cut  away  from  the  bone, 
except  the  single  muscle  of  which  I  was  just 
now  speaking,  (the  biceps,)  and  the  skin.  It 
is  represented,  too,  as  already  shrunk,  and  the 
arm  drawn  up  as  far  as  possible  towards  the 
shoulder.  You  see  how  lar<re  this  muscle  is 

o 

in  the  middle,  when  thus  contracted,  and  also 


120 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


the  point  at  which  it  is  inserted,  below  the 
elbow. 


In  one  respect,  a  muscle  does  not  shrink 
like  a  rope  ;  for  the  latter,  when  it  shortens, 
or  grows  larger,  swells  all  the  way  alike  ;  but 
when  a  muscle  contracts  to  draw  up  a  limb, 
it  swells  chiefly  in  the  middle.  Some  muscles 
do  not  swell  so  much  as  this  one  does,  when 
they  shorten  ;  but  they  are  all  enlarged  more 
or  less,  when  they  move,  at  our  will,  any  part 
of  our  body. 

Perhaps  you  do  not  yet  understand  how  a 
muscle,  by  contracting  or  shortening,  pulls  up 
the  arm.  I  will  endeavor  to  make  it  more 
plain. 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  121 

I  now  sit  at  my  table — my  right  arm  lying 
upon  it.  For  the  sake  of  explanation,  I  will 
consider  it  as  helpless  as  a  stick.  Now  if  I 
wish  to  get  my  hand  to  my  head,  how  is  it  to 
be  done  ?  If  a  piece  of  dry  rope,  fastened 
by  one  end  at  the  shoulder,  and  by  the  other 
to  my  hand,  were  moistened,  it  would  shrink, 
and  raise  my  hand  a  little  way  from  the  table, 
but  not  very  far. 

But  suppose  the  lower  end  of  the  rope 
were  fastened  round  the  middle  of  my  arm, 
and  then  made  to  shrink  ;  would  it  not  raise 
the  hand  higher  than  before — I  mean,  if  the 
elbow  remained  where  it  was  ?  It  certainly 
would.  Still  it  would  not  bring  the  hand  up 
to  the  head,  nor  half  way  to  it.  But  suppose, 
once  more,  that  the  lower  end  of  the  rope 
were  fastened  still  nearer  the  elbow.  The 
nearer  it  is,  the  farther  it  draws  up  the  hand, 
when  it  shrinks. 

Now  the  end,  or  tendon  of  the  muscle 
which  shrinks,  to  draw  the  hand  up  towards 
the  head,  is  fastened  to  the  arm  below  the 
elbow ;  and  so  close  to  it  that,  in  shrinking 
only  an  inch  or  so,  it  draws  the  hand  up  to 
the  head.  If  you  lay  the  other  hand  on  your 
11 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

arm,  between  the  shoulder  and  the  elbow, 
you  can  feel  the  muscle  contract,  and  at  the 
same  time  see  it  swell  out. 

If  the  tendon  of  the  lower  end  of  this  mus- 
cle were  fastened  lower  down,  that  is,  farther 
from  the  elbow,  it  would  start  out  so  far,  when 
we  raise  our  arm,  as  to  make  a  very  singular 
and  awkward  appearance,  unless  a  band  were 
put  round  it  at  the  elbow,  which  would  be 
very  inconvenient.  As  it  now  is,  the  tendon 
starts  out  a  little  way,  as  you  may  see  by  the 
engraving,  and  as  you  may  know  by  placing 
your  hand  on  it,  or  under  the  knee,  while  you 
are  bending  the  limb.  As  the  matter  is  con- 
trived by  the  great  Architect,  it  renders  the 
arm  very  useful,  gives  it  a  good  shape,  and 
ought  to  raise  our  thoughts  in  gratitude  to 
infinite  Wisdom. 

One  illustration  more.  Suppose  I  am  sit- 
ting at  church,  with  my  pew  door  open,  and 
wish  to  close  it  without  disturbing  anybody. 
Shall  I  take  hold  of  it  near  the  hinge,  so  that 
a  little  moving  of  my  hand  and  arm  will  an- 
swer the  purpose,  or  shall  I  take  hold  farther 
off?  Again,  suppose  a  rope  were  to  do  the 
work — would  not  one  which  should  be  tied 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  123 

to  the  door  close  to  the  hinge,  and  then  made 
to  shrink,  say  an  inch,  draw  it  together  much 
more  than  if  it  were  tied  at  the  distance  of  a 
foot  from  the  hinge  ?  It  is  true  that  in  shut- 
ting a  door  by  taking  hold  close  to  the  hinge, 
we  must  pull  harder  than  if  we  took  hold  far- 
ther off — and  so  it  is  with  muscles,  like  those 
which  bend  the  arm. 

From  the  course  of  these  remarks,  I  fear  it 
will  be  thought  that  there  is  only  one  muscle 
concerned  in  bending  the  arm.  The  truth  is, 
that  in  performing  almost  any  motion  of  the 
body,  or  the  parts  of  the  body,  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  muscles  are  employed.  In  moving 
the  hand  alone,  we  use  nearly  forty  ;  and  in 
using  the  whole  arm,  not  much  less,  I  presume, 
than  one  hundred. 

The  curious  reader  may  be  anxious  to  know 
how  the  bent  arm,  or  other  limb,  gets  back 
again  to  its  original  position.  Surely,  he  will 
say,  the  shrinking  of  the  same  muscles  which 
bent  it  will  not  straighten  it  out  again.  No  ; 
there  are  other  muscles  on  the  back  side  of  the 
arm,  to  draw  it  back  when  we  wish  ;  and  so  it 
is  all  over  the  body. 


124  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

If  you  look  on  a  skeleton,  (see  page  103  and 
the  frontispiece,)  you  see  how  the  bones  at  the 
joints  project,  and  also  how  ragged  the  spine 
and  many  of  the  flat  bones  appear.  Now  the 
several  hundred  muscles  of  our  frame  fill  up 
all  these  spaces,  cover  the  ragged  bones,  and 
produce  that  smooth  surface  which  we  see  on 
a  healthy  human  body. 

The  change  which  takes  place  is  something 
like  that  which  would  happen  if  we  were  to 
take  some  rather  soft  pliable  substance,  as 
hemp,  and  not  only  wind  it  about  all  the  side 
pieces  of  timber  in  a  wooden  house  frame,  but 
extend  it  across  from  timber  to  timber,  until 
the  whole  were  so  filled  up  and  rounded  as  .to 
appear  like  an  even  and  regular  surface,  instead 
of  a  broken  range  of  pieces  of  timber,  with 
large  vacancies  between  them. 

ABOUT  FAT. — But  I  must  not  leave  the 
impression  that  the  muscles  and  tendons  per- 
form all  the  "filling  up"  of  the  human  frame, 
for  it  is  not  so.  They  are  covered  again  by 
the  skin,  which  is  to  be  described  in  the  next 
chapter.  Nor  is  this  quite  all.  There  is  in 


COVERING  OF  THE  HOUSE.     125 

most  persons  a  small  quantity  of  fat,  inter- 
mixed with  the  muscles ;  and  in  some  persons 
a  great  deal  of  it.  This  fat  is  found  in  the 
soft,  white,  cellular  substance  which  is  placed 
everywhere  between  the  muscles,  and  the  little 
bundles  of  which  each  is  made  up.  You  will 
now  be  able  to  understand  and  remember  the 
meaning  of  the  word  cellular,  for  it  signifies 
made  up  of  little  cells,  something  like  honey- 
comb ;  and  the  fat  is  deposited  in  these  cells. 
Only  a  small  quantity  of  fat  is  necessary  to 
health  ;  and  when  it  is  found  in  unusually 
large  quantities,  in  man  and  in  other  animals, 
it  shows  that  they  are  diseased. 

REFLECTIONS. — Thus  we  see  that  the  great 
purposes  which  the  muscles  and  tendons  sub- 
serve are,  the  filling  up  and  beautifying  of  the 
frame,  and  the  motion  of  its  parts  and  of  the 
whole.  We  should  be  more  helpless  than  the 
brutes  are,  if  we  had  no  muscles.  Indeed,  as 
we  could  not  move  a  finger  without  them,  we 
should  be  more  miserable  than  any  other  ani- 
mal ;  for  all  animals  have  muscles — even  those 
which,  like  some  shell-fish,  hardly  know  enough 
to  change  their  place. 
ll* 


126  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

But  with  the  hundreds  of  muscles  which  we 
now  possess,  how  multiplied  are  our  motions  1 
For  you  should  recollect  that  not  only  the 
movements  of  the  head,  arms,  hands,  ringers, 
back,  legs,  toes,  &,c.,  are  performed  by  these 
means,  but  also  the  movements  of  the  very 
chest  itself  in  breathing,  unless,  as  is  the  case 
with  some  unwise  or  ignorant  mothers,  we 
confine  the  chest  by  tight  clothing.  More 
than  all  this,  the  curious  processes  of  chewing 
and  swallowing  our  food,  and  of  speaking, 
singing,  crying  and  laughing,  are  chiefly  done — 
not  without  the  aid  of  the  teeth,  it  is  true — by 
means  of  the  muscles. 

The  muscles  have  other  uses  still,  besides 
those  of  beauty  and  motion  ;  but  the  reader 
is  not  prepared  to  understand  what  they  are, 
till  he  knows  more  about  the  blood  and  the 
circulation.  In  describing  the  circulation  of 
the  blood,  I  shall  be  likely  to  make  the  matter 
plainer,  by  far — and  with  fewer  words — than 
I  could  possibly  do  it  in  this  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XL 


THE  COVERING.— BOARDS  AND  SHINGLES. 

The  skin.  Coloring  of  the  skin.  Change  of  color. 
The  cuticle.  Oil  glands.  Pores  of  the  skin.  Clean- 
liness. Hair  and  nails. 

THE  SKIN. — I  have  already  told  you  what 
cellular  membrane  is.  Now  the  first  layer  of 
the  covering  of  the  house  I  live  in — -for  there 
are  three  of  these  layers — consists  of  this 
membrane,  in  pretty  large  quantity,  and  as  it 
were  pressed  firmly  together.  It  has  a  closely 
interwoven  fibrous  appearance,  all  the  fibres 
crossing  each  other  in  every  direction,  like  the 
felt  of  a  hat ;  and  it  is  strong  and  elastic.  It 
is  called  the  cutis  vera,  or  real  skin. 

This  membrane,  or  real  skin,  is  principally 
composed  of  an  almost  endless  number  of 
small  blood  vessels,  running  along  and  crossing 
each  other  in  nearly  every  direction,  together 
with  nerves  equally  numerous,  intermingled 


128  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

with  them.  The  nerves,  however,  seem  to 
be  enlarged  on  the  surface  of  this  membrane, 
and  to  form  little  rows  of  eminences,  or  pim- 
ples. These  are  seen  plainest  on  the  tongue, 
and  on  the  balls  of  the  fingers  ;  but  they  ex- 
ist, in  small  size,  all  over  us.  You  cannot 
prick  the  skin  with  the  finest  needle  in  the 
world,  without  hitting  at  least  one  nerve  and 
one  blood  vessel.  For  there  would  be  pain 
'in  doing  so  ;  and  this  always  shows  that  a 
nerve  is  wounded.  A  very  little  blood  will 
also  flow,  which  shows  that  you  have  hit  a 
blood  vessel. 

This  is  that  which,  in  the  case  of  the  ox, 
deer  and  other  animals,  makes  leather.  In 
tanning,  currying  and  dressing  skins,  the  cel- 
lular layer  just  now  described,  the  layer  which 
remains  to  be  described,  and  the  paint,  are  all 
scraped  off,  and  nothing  remains  but  the  true  or 
real  skin — the  layer  now  under  consideration. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  here,  however,  that 
leather  consists  of  nothing  but  this  skin,  for 
tannin,  as  the  chemists  call  it,  which  is  ex- 
tracted from  the  bark  of  the  oak  or  other  trees, 
combines  with  the  raw  hide,  to  make  most 
kinds  of  leather ;  but  I  mean  that  no  animal 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE. 

substance  goes  to  form  the  leather,  except  this- 
single  membrane. 

COLORING  OF  THE  SKIN. — We  come  now 
to  the  color  of  the  human  body.  For  so  far 
as  I  have  already  described  the  skin,  the  color 
is  exactly  alike  in  all  people,  black,  red  or 
white.  Here,  spread  over  the  true  skin — 
the  part  which  forms  the  leather — on  a  thinr 
gauze-like  membrane,  called  in  books  rete 
mucosum,  and  under  the  outside  membrane 
not  yet  described,  is  a  soft  pulpy  or  jelly-like 
substance,  containing  the  color.  In  the  Afri- 
can, this  pulpy  substance  is  black  ;  in  the  na- 
tive American  or  Indian,  it  is  red,  or  copper 
color ;  in  the  Asiatic  it  is  yellow,  and  in  the 
European,  white.  In  mixed  breeds — mulat- 
toes,  &c. — it  is  of  course  of  the  various  colors 
which  those  mixtures  exhibit. 

I  have  sometimes  been  surprised  to  find 
how  ignorant  most  people  are  on  this  subject 
of  color.  Some  have  never  thought  of  it  at 
all ;  others  suppose  that  the  whole  mass  of 
our  bodies  is  darker  or  lighter,  according  to 
the  indication  of  our  faces  ;  others  suppose  the 
color  is  in  the  blood  ;  and  others  still  that  it  is 


130  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

in  the  true  skin,  or  the  part  which  forms  the 
leather.  But  we  see  that  none  of  these  are 
right — that  the  skin  itself,  properly  so  called, 
is  alike  in  the  whole  human  race  ;  that  is,  it 
would  form  leather  of  the  same  color  in  all ; 
and  that  the  color  might  be  removed,  though 
not  without  much  pain,  leaving  one  individual 
as  white  and  as  dark  as  another. 

What  good  this  color  does  is,  I  believe, 
unknown  ;  or  why  all  mankind  could  not  just 
as  well  have  been  left  wholly  without  it,  and 
all  have  been  really  flesh-colored.  In  some 
parts  of  the  skin,  in  the  European  race,  there 
seems  to  be  but  very  little  of  it.  It  is  only 
on  the  cheek,  and  perhaps  the  lips,  that  the 
color  seems  to  differ  much  from  that  of  the 
real  skin  itself. 

There  have  been  many  conjectures  about 
the  uses  of  this  coloring  matter,  but  there  is 
very  little  true  knowledge  abroad  concerning 
it.  We  know,  indeed,  that  a  dark  skin,  as  it 
allows  the  heat  of  the  body  to  escape  more 
rapidly  than  a  light  one,  renders  a  person 
cooler  in  hot  weather,  in  hot  climates  ;  but  it 
would  be  difficult  to  believe  that  this  is  the 
principal  reason  for  its  existence. 


COVERING  OF  THE  HOUSE.      131 

CHANGE  OF  COLOR. — There  is  one  curious 
fact  which  deserves  to  be  mentioned  in  this 
place.  It  is  that  the  coloring  matter,  in  some 
persons,  has  been  known  to  change.  There 
have  been  several  negroes,  and  I  believe  one 
or  two  Indians,  in  whom  spots  of  a  chalky 
white  have  appeared  on  their  limbs,  which 
enlarged  and  spread  until  the  whole  body  be- 
came white. 

It  is  not  at  all  strange  for  other  buildings  to 
fade  ;  but  for  the  human  habitation  to  lose  its 
color,  imbedded  as  the  paint  is  under  a  hard, 
tough  membrane,  seems  rather  unaccountable* 
But  it  is  the  result,  no  doubt,  of  disease. 

THE  CUTICLE. — I  observed  that  the  skin? 
as  it  is  called,  of  the  human  body,  consists  of 
three  layers.  I  have  described  two  of  them, 
and  the  mention  of  the  membrane  which  cov- 
ers this  paint  or  pigment  reminds  me  that  it  is 
time  to  describe  the  third. 

This  membrane — the  cuticle — which  an- 
swers to  the  clapboards,  shingles  or  tiles  of  a 
wooden  building,  is  constructed  almost  exactly 
like  the  latter.  Or  perhaps  it  would  be  equally 
correct  to  say,  that  it  is  formed  like  the  scales 


132  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

of  fishes.  For  anatomists  who  have  viewed  it 
with  glasses  which  magnify  greatly,  say  that,, 
thin  as  it  appears  to  the  naked  eye,  such  is  its 
real  structure. 

The  cuticle  is  the  part  which  rises  when  the 
skin  is  blistered.  If  you  examine  it  when  it  is- 
thus  raised,  however,  you  will  be  a  little  dis- 
appointed in  regard  to  its  structure  ;  for  it  is 
then  so  soaked  with  the  water  of  the  blister, 
and  so  much  thickened,  that  it  does  not  appear 
at  all  natural.  In  its  healthy  state,  it  is  scarcely 
a  fiftieth  part  as  thick  as  the  covering  of  a 
blister  ;  besides  which,  it  is  transparent,  or 
nearly  so.  If  it  were  not,  you  could  not  see 
the  coloring  matter  under  it  so  plainly. 

The  cuticle  is  not  equally  thick  throughout 
its  whole  extent ;  for  even  in  young  children 
and  infants,  the  palms  of  the  hands  and  soles 
of  the  feet  are  tougher  than  elsewhere  ;  and 
going  barefooted  many  years  together  renders 
the  feet  almost  as  tough  as  leather. 

You  will  get  the  best  idea  of  the  cuticle 
which  the  naked  eye  can  give  you,  by  exam- 
ining it  when  you  have  accidentally  grazed  off 
small  portions  of  it.  These  grazed  places  soon 
heal,  however,  if  we  are  temperate  and  correct 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  133 


in  all  our  habits ;  though  I  have  known  an  old 
man,  who  was  intemperate,  to  have  a  sore  and 
lame  leg  almost  a  year,  in  consequence  of  a 
slight  wound  that  would  have  healed  in  a 
week,  had  he  been  temperate. 

The  most  surprising  fact  in  regard  to  the 
cuticle  is,  its  power  of  being  reproduced,  or 
of  growing  again.  If  grazed  off,  or  if  it  peels 
off,  after  a  blister  or  swelling,  a  new  cuticle 
appears  with  so  much  rapidity  that  one  would 
be  tempted  to  think  it  was  already  formed 
under  the  old  one,  as  the  new  teeth  are  under 
the  old  ones,  which  they  push  out.  But  it  is 
not  so.  The  new  cuticle  never  grows  till  the 
old  one  is  either  separated  or  dead. 

The  coloring  matter,  if  destroyed,  grows  or 
appears  again,  almost  as  soon  as  the  cuticle 
does ;  but  the  real  skin,  which  I  described 
just  now,  if  once  destroyed,  never  grows  again. 
This  is  the  reason  why  scars  are  produced  on 
us.  The  loss  of  the  cuticle,  or  the  coloring 
matter,  never  causes  scars  ;  but  that  of  the 
real  skin  always  does.  It  is  true,  its  place  is 
sometimes  filled  up  with  a  substance  which 
strongly  resembles  skin,  and  which  answers 
the  purpose  ;  but  it  never  becomes  real  skin. 
12 


134  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

OIL  GLANDS. — All  animal  frames  seem  to 
require  frequent  lubricating,  or  oiling ;  and,  in 
some  of  the  feathered  tribes,  this  is  effected 
by  means  of  the  beak.  They  have  a  little 
gland,  as  it  is  called,  which  furnishes  them 
with  oil.  This  oil  they  press  out  with  their 
bills,  and  then  apply  it  to  their  feathers,  which 
overlap  each  other  like  shingles,  that  they 
may  the  better  shed  the  rain. 

But  most  other  animals,  instead  of  having 
the  oil  in  a  single  bag  or  gland,  have  it  in 
numerous  little  receptacles,  almost  too  small 
to  be  seen  by  the  naked  eye,  and  deeply  im- 
bedded in  the  skin.  They  are  very  thick  in 
the  skin  of  the  sheep,  and  hence  the  wool  of 
healthy  sheep  is  always  quite  oily.  They  are 
numerous,  too,  about  the  roots  of  the  hair  of 
most  animals  ;  and  hence  it  is  that  the  hair — 
even  the  human  hair — in  a  state  of  health, 
appears  more  or  less  oily. 

This  oil  for  the  hair  appears  to  be  furnished 
by  a  multitude  of  little  bags  or  glands  lying 
near  its  roots,  somewhat  resembling  a  bottle 
in  their  shape,  from  the  open  neck  of  which 
oozes  the  oil.  In  man,  the  hair  of  whose 
body  is  generally  thin,  this  oil  is  in  very  small 


COVERING    OF   THE    HOUSE.  135 

quantity,  and  is  not  very  important  to  health. 
There  are  many  of  these  little  glands  in  other 
parts  of  the  body,  as  well  as  at  the  roots  of 
the  hair.  They  are  found  in  great  abundance 
wherever  there  is  much  exposure  to  the  air, 
or  much  friction,  as  in  the  nose,  ears,  groins, 
arm-pits,  &c.  They  are  called  sebaceous 
glands,  or  follicles. 

Those  nations — and  some  such  there  have 
been  and  still  are — who  put  on  an  additional 
quantity  of  oil,  are  far  from  being  the  most 
healthy.  In  fact,  if  the  human  skin  is  not 
often  washed,  to  get  rid  even  of  its  natural  oil, 
it  becomes  a  source  of  disease. 

PORES  OF  THE  SKIN. — Besides  the  mouths 
of  these  little  oil  glands,  many  anatomists 
have  considered  the  skin — and  the  cuticle  of 
course — as  pierced  with  little  openings  called 
pores,  almost  innumerable.  Some  have  reck- 
oned them  at  1,000,000  to  every  square  inch. 
Others,  however,  deny  all  this.  But  one 
thing  is  very  certain,  which  is,  that  what  we 
call  sweat,  or  the  accumulated  perspiration  of 
the  body,  when  it  becomes  abundant,  is  con- 
stantly escaping  through  the  skin  and  its  cuti- 


136  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

cle,  in  the  form  of  a  thick  mist  or  fog,  as  we 
may  see  by  holding  a  bright  mirror  close  to  it, 
which  will  immediately  become  tarnished.  Or 
if  we  -sit  where  the  sun  shines  across  us,  upon  a 
wall,  we  can  see  the  shadow  of  the  mist  which 
ascends  from  us,  rising  like  a  sheet  of  thin 
smoke  upon  the  wall. 

CLEANLINESS. — It  is  of  less  consequence 
to  people  to  know  how  this  moisture  escapes, 
than  to  know  the  fact  that  it  does  so,  and  to 
know  also  that  if  this  constant  perspiration — 
for  that  is  its  name — is  checked  for  any  con- 
siderable time,  mischief  in  the  form  of  colds, 
fevers,  rheumatisms  and  consumptions  may 
ensue.  Great  mischief  may  also  follow,  if  this 
perspiration  is  checked  by  neglect  of  cleanli- 
ness. 

There  are  also  other  offices  performed  by 
the  skin  which  are  curious,  but  I  will  mention 
no  more  of  them  now.  The  more  you  under- 
stand the  structure  of  this  part  of  the  frame, 
the  more  you  will  see  how  important  it  is  that 
it  should  be  kept  clean  by  washing,  every  day 
we  live.  And  yet  how  many  there  are,  who 
hardly  wash  it  at  all,  except  perhaps  their 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  137 

face  and  hands  !  Such  persons  are  not  fit  to 
be  entrusted  with  a  habitation  so  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made.  In  truth,  they  are  not 
usually  so  long  entrusted  with  it  as  others. 
The  great  Architect  usually  turns  them  out 
many  years  earlier  than  he  would,  if  they 
took  care  of  it;  and  in  the  case  of  cholera  or 
malignant  fever,  sometimes  thrusts  them  out 
with  apparent,  though  deserved  violence. 

THE  HAIR  AND  NAILS. — This  is  the  proper 
place  for  saying  something  about  the  hair  and 
nails ;  for  these,  though  not  skin,  are  closely 
connected  with  it,  and  even  fitted  into  it. 
The  hair  appears  to  be  the  proper  covering 
for  the  head ;  but  more  pains  are  necessary  to 
comb  it  and  keep  it  clean  than  are  commonly 
used ;  and  for  this  and  several  other  reasons, 
it  is  apt  to  become  sickly  and  diseased,  and  to 
fall  off. 

In  some  parts  of  Europe,  as  among  the 
peasants  of  Poland  and  Hungary,  who  greatly 
neglect  cleanliness,  and  are  addicted  to  other 
filthy  and  bad  habits,  the  hair  becomes  closely 
matted  together,  and  a  terrible  disease  ensues, 
called  plica  polonica.  But  in  all  countries, 
12* 


138  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

not  only  the  hair,  but  the  health  in  general, 
suffers  more  or  less,  if  we  long  neglect  the 
cleanliness  of  any  part  of  our  bodies. 

As  to  the  nails,  I  can  only  say  that  they 
are  intended  to  brace  or  support  the  balls  of 
the  fingers,  so  that  we  can  use  them  the  better 
in  examining  bodies  by  the  sense  of  touch. 
Hence  one  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
pared  too  closely  ;  and  hence,  too,  the  reason 
why,  when  they  are  pared  too  closely,  the 
ends  of  the  fingers  often  become  more  or  less 
crooked. 


CHAPTER  XII. 


THE   COVERING.— THE  WINDOWS. 

General  remarks.  The  human  eye.  Situation  of  the 
eye.  Muscles  of  the  eye.  Coats  of  the  eye.  Optic 
nerve.  The  tears.  The  eyelids.  The  eyebrows 
The  eyelashes.  Reflections. 

GENERAL  REMARKS. — Before  glass  was  in- 
vented, the  windows  of  dwelling  houses  were 
small,  and  made  in  different  ways.  In  sum- 
mer, they  often  consisted  of  a  mere  hole  in  the 
side  of  the  building.  In  the  eastern  houses 
there  were  no  windows  of  any  kind  in  front, 
or  towards  their  neighbors  ;  and  in  China,  this 
is  the  custom  to  the  present  day. 

In  winter,  these  holes  or  windows  were 
closed  up  with  something  which  would  par- 
tially exclude  the  cold,  the  rain  and  the  snow. 
In  some  countries  of  Asia,  and  in  ancient 
Britain,  they  used  oiled  paper  for  tnis  purpose. 
In  France,  besides  oiled  paper,  they  used  talc 


140  THE    HOUSE   I   LIVE   IN. 

or  isinglass,  white  horn,  and  thinly  shaved 
leather.  In  ancient  Rome,  the  rich  sometimes 
used  very  precious  stones.  Those  in  their 
bathing  houses  were  often  of  agate  or  marble. 
The  Chinese  used  a  very  fine  cloth,  covered 
with  a  shining  varnish  ;  and,  afterwards,  split 
oyster  shells.  They  had  also  the  art  of  work- 
ing out  the  horns  of  animals  into  large  and 
thin  plates,  which  they  used  in  the  place  of 
glass  for  their  windows. 

The  first  windows  of  common  glass,  that  is, 
sand,  potash,  &c.  melted  together  and  formed 
into  plates,  were  made  in  the  time  of  Con- 
stantine  the  Great,  in  the  fourth  century  after 
Christ ;  though  it  appears  from  later  inquiries, 
that  glass  windows  were  known  in  Rome  long 
before  that  time.  But  it  was  not  till  the 
fifteenth  or  sixteenth  century,  that  glass  was 
brought  into  common  and  general  use. 

THE  HUMAN  EYE. — The  windows  of  the 
human  frame  are  made  neither  of  paper,  isin- 
glass, agate,  marble,  horn,  leather,  cloth,  oys- 
ter shells  or  common  glass.  Nor  are  they 
confined  to  the  back  part  of  the  house,  like 
those  of  some  eastern  nations.  Nor  are  they 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  141 

very  large  or  numerous.  There  are  but  two 
of  them,  and  those  are  rather  small  in  size. 
They  are  set  in  the  front  part  of  the  house,  in 
the  cupola. 

Both  of  them  open  or  shut — rise  and  fall, 
have  the  curtains  drawn  or  removed,  and  the 
blinds  opened  or  closed — at  the  same  instant 
or  separately,  just  as  required.  Most  windows 
are  made  to  be  raised  only,  that  is,  moved,  in 
one  direction ;  but  these  move  every  way, 
and  with  the  greatest  ease  and  rapidity.  It  is 
done  by  means  of  pulleys,  &c.  The  curtains 
may  be  .drawn  or  removed  almost  with  the 
swiftness  of  lightning,  and  hundreds  of  times 
in  a  minute. 

SITUATION  OF  THE  EYE. — The  human  eye 
is  almost  as  round  as  an  apple,  though  not 
quite ;  for  it  projects  a  little  at  the  fore  part. 
In  an  adult  person,  it  is  not  more  than  an  inch 
in  diameter,  and  lies  deep  in  a  cavity  in  the 
skull.  It  is  not  fixed,  like  the  eyes  of  some 
animals,  but  can  be  made  to  roll  about,  up- 
ward, downward  and  sideways.  For  this 
purpose,  it  does  not  adhere  closely  to  the 
bone,  but  lies  on  a  soft  bed  of  fatty  substance, 


142  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

and  has  many  muscles  or  cords  fastened  to 
the  sides  and  back  part  of  it,  as  you  see  in 
the  engraving. 


If  the  eye  of  a  dead  person  was  to  be  cut 
in  two  in  the  middle,  from  top  to  bottom, 
with  the  handle  of  the  knife  held  forwards, 
and  the  point  towards  the  back  side  of  the 
head,  a  side  view  of  one  of  these  halves  might 
be  supposed  to  look  like  the  engraving.  A 
large  whitish  cord,  which  you  see  running 
from  b  to  the  back  side  of  the  eye,  comes 
from  the  brain,  and  is  called  the  optic  nerve. 
The  rest  of  the  cords  between  d  and  e  are 
muscles,  or  little  bundles  of  flesh  ;  and  they 
become  tendons,  or  hard  wbitish  cords,  of 
very  great  delicacy,  at  the  smaller  part,  where 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  143 

they  are  fastened  to  the  eye.  The  tendon  of 
the  upper  one  goes  round  a  little  piece  of 
bone  like  a  hook,  as  you  find  at  c.  The 
lower  one,  /,  is  also  fastened  in  a  very  inge- 
nious manner. 

The  tendon  that  passes  round  a  piece  of 
the  bone  of  the  forehead,  is  fastened  to  the 
very  top  of  the  eyeball.  Now  it  is  easy  to 
see  that  if  the  upper  muscle  at  d  should 
contract  or  shrink,  it  would  operate  just  as  if 
it  were  a  rope,  and  somebody  pulled  it ; — that 
is  to  say,  it  would  pull  the  top  of  the  eyeball 
forward,  and  make  the  fore  part,  at  0,  turn 
downwards,  so  that  a  person  might  look  to- 
wards his  feet. 

MUSCLES  OF  THE  EYE. — The  eyeball  is 
moved  by  six  muscles,  four  straight  and  two 
oblique  ones.  The  straight  ones  are  placed, 
one  on  each  side  of  the  ball  ;  one  at  top,  and 
one  at  bottom.  They  begin  at  the  sides  of 
the  hole  into  the  skull  at  the  back  part  of  the 
socket  of  the  eye,  through  which  the  optic 
nerve  (eye  nerve)  passes  to  the  brain. 

One  of  the  oblique  muscles  rises  from  the 
same  place  with  the  others ;  but  the  other 


144  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

comes  from  the  fore  part  of  the  eye.  The 
four  straight  ones  (which  can  be  seen  in  the 
plate)  move  the  eyeball  to  either  side,  upwards 
or  downwards,  as  may  be  wished,  and  accord- 
ing to  which  of  them  is  employed  ;  and  the 
oblique  muscles,  acting  separately,  also  move 
the  ball  to  either  side.  When  the  straight 
muscles  all  act  together,  they  draw  the  eye- 
ball deep  into  the  socket ;  and  when  the 
others  act  together,  they  draw  it  forwards 
again. 

COATS  OF  THE  EYE. — The  eye  is  a  large 
hollow  sack,  containing  a  clear  but  thick  li- 
quid, a  large  part  of  which  is  not  unlike  the 
white  of  an  egg.  The  covering  of  the  eye 
consists  of  several  coats  or  layers. 

The  outside,  or  sclerotic  coat,  as  it  is  called, 
can  be  seen  in  the  engraving.  It  is  very 
thick,  and  a  small  portion  of  it  at  the  fore 
part  is  wanting,  In  this  vacancy  or  opening 
is  set  the  cornea,  a  piece  of  membrane  which 
is  transparent — that  is,  can  be  seen  through 
like  glass.  This  transparent  part  you  will 
find  near  a.  It  is  placed  in  the  sclerotica,  as 
a  crystal  is  set  in  a  watch  ;  or,  if  we  compare 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  145 

the  eye  to  a  window,  just  as  a  pane  of  glass 
is  set  in  the  frame  ;  with  this  difference,  how- 
ever, that  a  pane  of  glass  is  seldom  round, 
while  the  cornea  is  as  round  as  a  dollar.  It 
also  stands  out  from  the  eye,  like  the  crystals 
of  most  watches  ;  and  through  it  the  rays  of 
light  enter  the  eye,  to  pass  to  the  back  part 
of  it.  What  we  call  the  white  of  the  eye  is 
the  sclerotica,  or  window  frame,  as  far  as  we 
can  see  it,  surrounding  the  cornea. 

The  tunica  sclerotica,  or  sclerotic  coat  of 
the  eye,  is  lined  by  another  thin  coat,  called 
the  choroidcs.  The  internal  surface  of  the 
choroides  is  covered  all  over,  except  at  the 
back  part,  where  the  optic  nerve  enters,  with 
a  thin,  sooty  kind  of  black  paste,  called  by 
anatomists  the  pigmentum  nigrum,  which  sig- 
nifies black  pigment.  You  can  see  this  paint 
represented  very  fairly  in  the  engraving  ;  and 
as  this  is  spread  over  the  choroides,  and  the 
choroides  only  lines  the  sclerotica,  and  does 
not  extend  to  the  cornea,  you  can  easily  see 
where  the  latter  begins.  The  use  of  this 
black  pigment  is  to  absorb  or  drink  up  the 
rays  of  light,  after  they  have  performed  the 
office  for  which  they  are  intended. 
33 


146  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Where  the  sclerotica  and  cornea  join,  a 
kind  of  circular  membrane  or  curtain  runs 
inwards,  and  is  represented  in  the  cut  by  two 
white  lines  approaching  each  other,  but  not 
quite  coming  together.  When  we  look  at  the 
eye  of  a  living  person,  this  curtain  is  sometimes 
light  blue  ;  in  other  persons  it  is  gray,  hazel 
or  black.  When  this  curtain,  called  the  iris, 
is  blue,  the  person  is  said  to  have  blue 
eyes ;  when  black,  he  is  said  to  have  black 
eyes,  &LC. 

The  circular  hole,  in  the  middle  of  the  irisr 
is  called  the  pupil  of  the  eye.  It  is  larger 
or  smaller  in  proportion  as  the  iris  is  shrunk 
more  or  less ;  for  the  iris  will  shrink  or  con- 
tract, a  little  like  the  muscles.  The  greater 
the  light  before  the  eye,  the  smaller  is  the 
pupil.  When  we  are  in  the  dark,  it  is  very 
large,  as  if  the  iris  shrunk  back  in  order  to  let 
as  many  rays  of  light  pass  through  the  pupil, 
to  the  optic  nerve,  at  the  back  part  of  the 
eye,  as  possible. 

The  greater  part  of  the  rest  of  the  eyeball 
consists  of  a  substance  which  I  told  you  had 
some  resemblance  to  the  white  of  an  egg,  or 
that  ropy  but  clear  fluid  in  which  the  yolk 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  147 

swims.  Anatomists,  however,  say  that  the 
greater  part  of  it  resembles  melted  glass,  which 
I  suppose  few  of  you  have  seen  ;  but  as  we 
have  called  the  eye  a  window,  the  comparison 
is  a  very  happy  one. 

The  edges  of  the  iris  or  curtain,  like  a 
partition,  divide  this  liquor  into  two  parcels, 
connected  only  at  the  pupil.  The  part  of  it 
which  Is  before  the  iris  is  called  the  aqueous 
humor ;  and  that  which  is  behind  it,  and 
which  is  many  times  the  largest^  the  vitreous 
humor. 

Just  at  the  back  of  the  iris,  exactly  behind 
the  pupil,  is  a  small  body,  clear  and  transpa- 
rent, like  the  rest  of  the  vitreous  humor,  but 
much  harder,  and  imbedded  in  its  midst,  with- 
out ever  getting  out  of  its  place.  It  is  called 
the  crystalline  lens.  It  is  rounded  or  convex 
on  both  sides,  and  resembles  two  watch  crys- 
tals, with  their  hollow  or  concave  sides  put 
together,  only  that  there  is  no  hollow  in  the 
middle  of  it.  It  may  be  as  large  as  the  ker- 
nel of  a  hazel  nut. 

The  lens  is  represented  in  the  engraving  by 
a  light  spot,  which  you  cannot  fail  to  distin- 
guish, near  the  fore  part  of  the  eye. 


148  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

There  is  a  disease  of  the  eye,  in  which 
this  lens  turns  whitish  ;  and  as  the  rays  of 
light  can  no  longer  pass  through  it,  the  person 
becomes  blind.  The  only  way  to  cure  it 
is  for  the  surgeon  to  pass  a  slender  needle 
through  the  side  of  the  eye,  and  push  this 
hard,  dry,  dead  body  downwards,  or  to  one 
side.  This  is  often  successful,  and  the  pro- 
cess is  attended  with  less  pain  than  the  ex- 
traction of  a  tooth.  Sometimes,  also,  the 
surgeon  takes  this  diseased  lens,  or  cataract, 
quite  out  of  the  eye. 

OPTIC  NERVE.-— 'The  optic  nerve,  which  I 
mentioned  as  entering  at  the  back  part  of  the 
eye,  expands  or  spreads  itself  as  it ,  enters, 
over  the  whole  choroides  ;  and  this  expansion 
is  called  the  retina.  This,  though  it  is  the 
end  of  the  optic  nerve,  and  of  course  a  part 
of  it,  is  yet  different  from  it  in  appearance, 
being  more  tender,  pulpy  and  gray  than  the 
body  of  the  nerve  itself.  The  rays  of  light, 
entering  from  all  directions,  in  passing  through 
the  eye,  strike  first  upon  the  cornea,  then 
pass  through  the  aqueous  humor,  (part  of 
which  lies  before,  and  part  behind  the  pupil,) 


COVERING    OE    THE    HOUSE.  149 

and  then  enter  the  crystalline  lens.  Having 
arrived  there,  the  rays  diverge  as  from  a  cen- 
tre towards  its  circumference  ;  and  after  going 
through  the  vitreous  humor,  strike  on  the  re- 
tina ;  and  it  is  here  that  what  we  call  sight  is 
effected.  Here  is  a  plate  to  illustrate  the 
mechanism  of  vision. 


A,  rays  of  light  from  all  parts.  B,  cornea  through 
which  they  pass,  c,  crystalline  lens,  where  they  suffer 
refraction;  that  is,  are  crossed  or  bent  out  of  their 
course.  D,  diverging  rays.  E  E,  retina,  upon  which 
the  picture  is  formed.  F,  optic  nerve. 

The  image  or  picture  of  every  object  which 
is  before  the  eye  is  formed  on  the  retina, 
inverted,  that  is,  bottom  upwards.  Thus,  if  I 
am  looking  at  a  house  or  tree,  there  is  a  kind 
of  shadow  or  image  of  that  house  or  tree  on 
the  retina  of  my  eye,  with  the  bottom  up- 
13* 


150  THE    HOUSE,  I    LIVE    IN. 

ward.  Why  everything  we  look  at  does  not 
appear  to  us  inverted,  rather  than  with  the 
right  end  upwards,  is  not  known. 

There  are  many  people  who  cannot  see 
objects  clearly,  unless  they  are  very  close  to 
the  eye.  Such  persons  are  said  to  be  short 
or  near  sighted.  This  is  because  the  cornea — 
the  crystal  which  is  set  by  the  Creator  in  the 
fore  part  of  the  eye — is  too  round,  or  convex ; 
though  it  is  sometimes  because  the  crystalline 
lens  is  also  too  convex.  In  either  case,  the 
evil  is  partly  obviated  by  wearing  spectacles 
which  are  concave,  that  is,  thinner  at  theii 
centre  than  at  their  circumference. 

Other  people  are  long  sighted — the  conse- 
quence of  having  the  cornea  of  the  eye  too 
flat.  This  is  almost  always  the  case  with 
people  as  they  grow  old.  The  evil  is  reme- 
died, in  part,  at  least,  by  using  convex  glasses, 
— exactly  the  contrary  course  to  that  recom- 
mended in  the  former  case.  Much  might  be 
added  on  this  subject,  which  would  be  inter- 
esting, but  we  have  not  room  for  it  in  a  work 
like  this ;  nor  is  it  absolutely  necessary  to  the 
very  young  student. 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  151 

THE  TEARS. — From  a  small  gland,  not 
unlike  the  gland  which  furnishes  the  saliva,  or 
spittle,  only  much  smaller,  over  the  top  of 
each  eye,  just  within  the  socket,  flows  a  small 
quantity  of  a  clear  liquid,  and,  by  means  of 
the  eyelids,  operates  as  a  moist  cloth  would 
do,  passed  over  a  glass  window.  This  liquid 
is  carried  over  the  whole  surface  of  the  eye, 
and  keeps  it  constantly  moist  and  clean.  The 
superfluous  liquid  is  then  carried  off  through 
a  very  narrow  passage,  which  descends  from 
the  inner  corner  of  the  eye,  and  is  conveyed 
by  a  pipe  or  duct  into  the  nose. 

The  little  gland  over  the  eye  is  called  the 
lachrymal  gland ;  the  liquor  which  it  furnishes 
to  wash  the  eye  is  called  the  tears  ;  and  the 
tube  through  which  the  tears  escape  into  the 
nose  is  called  the  lachrymal  duct. 

If  this  duct  gets  permanently  stopped,  as 
sometimes  happens,  the  tears  overflow  the 
eye,  and  run  down  on  the  outside  of  the  cheek, 
which  causes  much  trouble.  To  remedy  this 
evil,  the  surgeon  is  sometimes  obliged  to  fix 
an  artificial  tube  in  such  a  manner  as  to  con- 
vey the  fluid  into  the  nose,  to  be  carried  off 
as  it  should  be. 


152  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

THE  EYELIDS. — The  eyelids  are  to  guard 
the  tender  eye  from  injury  in  various  ways. 

One  of  their  uses  is  to  keep  off  the  too 
strong  light  of  the  sun.  If  our  eyelids  were 
cut  off,  if  it  did  no  other  harm,  I  am  sure  we 
should  soon  become  blind.  Those  people 
who  let  the  full  blaze  of  a  candle,  or  lamp,  or 
bright  fire,  shine  on  their  eyes,  run  a  great 
risk  of  injuring  their  sight ;  but  they  are  some- 
times a  great  many  years  in  finishing  the  work 
of  making  themselves  wholly  blind. 

Besides  veiling  the  eyes  during  sleep,  an- 
other use  of  the  eyelids  is  to  ward  off  small 
bodies  from  the  eyes,  as  sticks,  chips,  stones, 
&c.  The  power  of  the  eye  is  wonderful  in 
this  respect.  It  will  sometimes  close  so  sud- 
denly as  to  shut  out  an  object  which  could 
hardly  have  been  seen,  just  as  if  it  felt  it 
coming  before  it  arrived.  It  does  not  always 
close  quick  enough,  however ;  for  blacksmiths, 
stone-cutters,  cutlers,  &c.  sometimes  have  their 
eyes  more  or  less  injured. 

THE  EYEBROWS  AND  EYELASHES. — The 
eyebrows  serve  as  a  sort  of  defence  to  the 
eyes,  by  catching  a  part  of  the  dust  that  would 


COVERING    OF    THE    HOUSE.  153 

otherwise  fall  into  them.  Perhaps  they  may 
have  other  uses  than  this  ;  but  I  have  not 
room  to  enlarge.  I  should  like  to  describe 
the  eyelashes,  and  mention  their  uses,  and 
also  speak  of  several  other  membranes,  vessels, 
&c.,  connected  with  this  wronderful  organ,  but 
the  limits  of  a  work  like  this  forbid.  I  can 
only  say  that  besides  contributing  to  the  beauty 
of  the  countenance,  both  the  eyelids  and  eye- 
lashes lend  their  aid  in  keeping  off  too  strong 
a  light,  as  well  as  in  defending  the  tender 
organ  beneath  from  injury. 

REFLECTIONS. — 1  must  not  close  this  chap- 
ter without  noticing  the  place  in  which  the 
eye  is  situated.  Some  animals,  as  the  snake, 
tortoise,  &c.,  have  the  eyes  set  in  the  side,  or 
rather  in  the  upper  part  of  the  head,  precisely 
where  they  are  wanted ;  for  they  have  no 
occasion  to  look  downward.  In  general,  those 
animals  that  cannot  move  the  eye  without 
moving  the  whole  body,  have  this  organ  more 
prominent,  and  more  to  the  side. 

But  man,  without  moving  his  body  at  all, 
can  move  his  head  in  such  a  manner  that 
though  the  eyes  are  fixed  in  the  front  part  of 


154  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

the  head,  and  in  a  deep  socket,  he  can  yet 
look  in  every  possible  direction.  All  things 
considered,  his  eyes  are  as  happily  placed  as 
those  of  any  other  known  animal ;  and  they 
are  much  better  guarded  from  injury.  Their 
deep  bony  socket,  the  high  ridge  around  it, 
the  eyebrows,  the  eyelids,  the  eyelashes,  and 
lastly,  reason  to  direct  us,  and  enable  us  to 
avoid  danger,  all  conspire  to  guard  the  "  apple 
of  the  eye,"  as  it  has  been  called,  with  great 
care  ;  and,  in  this  country,  it  is  comparatively 
seldom  that  we  meet  with  a  person,  young  or 
old,  who  has  not  both  eyes  perfect. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


THE   COVERING.— THE   DOORS. 

Description  of  the  ear,  externally  and  internally.     De- 
scription of  the  nose.    The  mouth. 

THE  doors  of  the  house  I  live  in  are  the 
mouth,  ears,  nose,  &c.  These  I  call  doors 
for  reasons  which  have  already  been  given, 
and  for  others  which  will  presently  be  seen. 

THE  EAR. — Some  account  of  this  has  been 
given  in  treating  of  the  bones.  The  reader 
has  already  been  told  that  it  is  made  for  the 
admission  of  sound  ;  that,  if  there  were  no  ear, 
we  could  hear  no  sounds,  and  that  a  part  of 
this  curious  organ  lies  deep  in  the  bones  of 
the  head. 

There  are,  in  fact,  two  great  divisions  of 
the  human  ear — the  external  and  the  internal. 
The  external  ear  is  what  we  see  in  the  living 


156  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

individual,  consisting  of  a  semi-circular  portion, 
spread  out,  the  shape  of  which  everybody 
knows,  and  a  passage  in  the  middle,  leading 
into  the  head. 

The  external  ear,  which  we  see,  is  made 
of  gristle  or  cartilage,  covered  with  the  skin. 
It  is  concave,  for  the  collection  of  sound. 
Such  is  the  curious  structure  of  the  eye,,  that 
the  rays  of  light,  from  all  directions,  are  col- 
lected into  a  very  small  point  at  the  back 
part  of  it ;  and  in  like  manner,  such  is  the 
structure  of  the  external  ear,  that  sound  is 
collected  by  it  towards  the  passage,  in  the 
centre. 

This  passage  is  lined  by  a  membrane  like 
the  skin,  except  that  it  is  a  little  thinner,  the 
oil  glands  more  numerous,  and  the  oil  very 
bitter.  What  is  called  the  ear-wax  is  this  oil, 
dried,  and  accumulated  in  large  quantities. 
Sometimes  it  has  been  known  to  accumulate 
in  such  hard  masses,  and  of  such  a  size,  as  to 
make  people  deaf,  by  obstructing  the  passage 
of  sound.  There  was  lately  a  case  of  the 
kind  in  this  neighborhood.  Both  ears  were 
thus  obstructed,  but  one  was  much  worse  off 
than  the  other. 


THE    DOORS.  157 

This  oil  or  wax  is  supposed  to  have  been 
made  bitter,  to  keep  flies  and  other  insects 
from  getting  into  the  ear ;  for  these  insects 
dislike  bitter  substances.  There  is,  however, 
less  danger  from  having  insects  get  into  the 
ear  than  is  commonly  supposed ;  for  when 
the  ear  drum,  or  membrane  of  the  tympanum, 
of  which  I  have  spoken  in  another  place,  is 
not  ruptured,  neither  insects  nor  anything  else 
can  get  into  the  head  more  than  three  quarters 
of  an  inch,  and  could  easily  be  washed  out. 
Still,  they  might  produce  some  irritation,  and 
they  are  therefore  excluded  by  the  means 
spoken  of. 

If,  however,  the  ears  are  washed  out  well 
every  day,  and  especially  if  they  are  often  syr- 
inged out  with  weak  soap  suds  and  water,  we 
shall  seldom  have  trouble,  either  from  the 
collection  of  wax  or  from  insects.  Cleanli- 
ness is  very  important,  not  only  in  the  case 
of  the  ear,  but  of  all  parts  of  the  body. 

Beyond  the  drum  is  a  chamber,  called  by 
anatomists  the  cavity  of  the  tympanum.  In 
this  cavity  are  the  little  bones  which  I  have 
formerly  described.  Here  also  a  small  passage 
commences,  which  terminates  near  the  back 
14 


158  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

part  of  the  nostrils,  called  the  eustachian  tube. 
The  use  of  this  passage,  from  the  inside  of  the 
mouth  to  the  internal  ear,  is  not  very  well 
known  ;  but  it  is  believed  to  be  intended,  in 
part,  for  the  purpose  of  letting  in  air,  in  order 
that  the  pressure  on  both  sides  of  the  drum 
may  be  alike. 

Some  suppose  that  it  enables  us  to  hear 
a  little  through  the  mouth  ;  but  this  is  not 
probable.  If  we  hear  at  all  through  the 
mouth,  it  is  in  a  degree  scarcely  worth  men- 
tioning. 

Near  the  hinder  part  of  this  cavity  of  the 
tympanum,  there  is  also  an  opening  into  a 
collection  of  cells  in  the  bone.  The  part 
of  the  head  in  which  these  cells  are  situated 
may  be  found  quite  prominent  behind  the  ear. 
The  use  of  the  cells  is  not  very  well  known. 

Though  the  ear  is  to  be  considered  a  door 
of  the  human  habitation,  the  passage  into  it, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  usually  closed  by  the  ear 
drum.  The  door-way  for  everything  except 
sound,  therefore,  would  be  more  properly 
through  the  mouth. 

Sometimes — we  know  not  how — the  drum 
membrane  gets  broken.  There  have  been 


THE    DOORS.  159 

men,  for  example,  who  could  force  tobacco 
smoke,  held  in  their  mouth,  out  at  their  ears. 
This  proves  that  the  membrane  in  question 
had  a  hole  in  it.  I  do  not  know  that  such  a 
breach  affects  the  hearing  very  much.  It  is 
true  it  requires  us  to  be  more  cautious  what 
we  get  into  our  ears ;  for  if  substances  go 
beyond  the  ear  drum  quite  into  the  cavity  of 
the  tympanum,  they  will  produce  inflamma- 
tion ;  and  in  the  end,  perhaps,  cause  deafness 
or  death. 

I  wish  I  had  room  to  tell  you  more  about 
this  cavity  of  the  ear,  and  indeed  about  the 
whole  organ  of  hearing ;  for  it  is  a  very  curi- 
ous organ. 

But  all  I  can  say,  which  will  probably  be 
useful  to  you  at  present,  is  a  few  words  about 
the  labyrinth.  This  is  a  large  cavity,  still 
deeper  in  the  head  than  the  foregoing ;  and,  if 
possible,  still  more  curious  in  its  structure. 

The  middle  part  of  the  cavity  is  called  the 
vestibule.  It  is  somewhat  oval  in  shape.  At 
one  end  of  it  are  three  tubes,  each  of  which 
is  so  bent  or  curved  as  to  form  almost  a  circle. 
They  open  into  the  vestibule,  and  are  called 
semi-circular  canals. 


160 


TllE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


At  the  other  end  of  the  vestibule  is  a  tube 
of  a  conical  shape,  but  resembling,  on  its 
outside,  the  shell  of  a  snail.  It  is  called  the 
cochlea.  This  also  opens  into  the  vestibule. 

The  little  bones  of  the  ear  are  connected 
with  the  ear  drum  on  one  side,  and  with  the 
parts  of  the  labyrinth  just  described  on  the 
other.  The  labyrinth,  in  all  its  parts,  is  most 
intimately  connected  with  the  brain  ;  and  some 


H 


THE    DOORS.  161 

of  these  very  parts  themselves  seem  almost 
like  brain.  They  contain  a  tremulous  jelly- 
like  substance,  among  which  those  branches 
of  the  brain  which  we  call  the  nerves  of  the 
ear  are  very  thickly  interspersed. 

On  the  preceding  page  is  an  engraving  of 
the  ear,  both  external  and  internal. 

In  this  engraving,  A  represents  the  tube  or 
passage  leading  to  the  ear  drum  ;  B,  the  ear 
drum,  or  tympanum  ;  c,  the  passage  from  the 
ear  to  the  throat ;  D  E  F  G,  the  little  bones  of 
the  ear ;  i,  the  semi-circular  canals  in  the 
ear ;  j,  the  vestibule,  and  K,  the  cochlea.  H 
refers  to  a  little  opening. 

What  always  strikes  me  most,  in  relation 
to  the  human  ear,  is  the  singularly  careful 
manner  in  which  the  nerve  of  hearing — the 
auditory  nerve — is  distributed  in  the  various 
parts  of  the  labyrinth.  Its  various  branches 
are  spread  upon  a  soft,  pulpy  substance,  which 
serves  as  a  sort  of  cushion,  and  is  almost  as 
tremulous  as  a  mass  of  jelly  or  fluid.  How  much 
there  is  of  divine  wisdom  displayed  in  placing 
this  soft,  tender  mass,  and  especially  the  ten- 
der and  delicate  extremities  of  the  nerve,  in  a 
curious  box  of  the  hardest  bone,  yet  connected 
14* 


162  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

with  the  external  world  in  such  a  way  that 
the  softest  whisper,  as  well  as  the  loudest 
thunder  and  the  heaviest  artillery,  will  reach 
it  and  produce  sensation  !  The  optic  nerve, 
in  the  back  part  of  the  eye,  is  little  better 
secured  from  injury  than  this  auditory  nerve. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  just  to  remark, 
here,  that  the  same  almighty  wisdom  and 
goodness  which  are  shown  in  the  construction 
of  the  human  eye  and  ear,  are  displayed  in 
the  eyes  and  ears  of  many  other  animals. 
Those  which  pursue  their  prey  by  night,  and 
need  to  be  guided  much  by  the  sense  of  hear- 
ing, have  large  muscles  which  enable  them  to 
move  their  ears,  especially  to  erect  them. 
Savages,  and  some  civilized  men,  have  this 
power  in  a  slight  degree,  but  in  a  slight  degree 
only.  In  animals  of  the  whale  kind,  and 
most  others  which  dive  in  the  water,  a  valve 
is  placed  within  the  aperture  of  the  external 
ear,  to  moderate  the  pressure  of  the  water 
upon  the  drum — besides  which,  the  passage 
into  the  ear  is  very  crooked.  The  study  of 
the  structure  of  beasts,  birds  and  fishes,  is  ex- 
ceedingly interesting,  as  well  as  important. 


THE    DOORS.  163 

THE  NOSE. — This  is  a  more  important 
door  of  the  human  habitation  than  many  sup- 
pose. All  or  nearly  all  animal  and  vegetable 
bodies  are  constantly  sending  off  small  parti- 
cles, the  quality  of  which,  when  they  are  re- 
ceived at  the  nose,  in  its  natural  state,  can  in 
general  be  easily  detected. 

This  is  undoubtedly  one  great  purpose  of 
this  organ,  and  especially  of  its  curious  inter- 
nal structure.  For  in  order  that  we  may 
detect  the  nature  of  the  bodies  whose  particles 
the  air  is  constantly  full  of,  the  inside  of  this 
organ  of  smell  is  very  extensive. 

1.  The  bones,  in  some  places,  project  into 
the  nose,  like  large  but  irregular  shelves. 

2.  There  is  a  hollow  cavity  in  each  cheek 
bone,  which  will  hold  about  half  an  ounce, 
and  which  has  a  communication  with  the  in- 
side of  the  nose. 

3.  There  are  also  cavities  in  the  forehead, 
at   the  top  of  the  nose,  between   the   eyes, 
which  communicate,  in  like  manner,  with  the 
cavity  of  the  nose. 

Over  this  extensive  internal  surface,  viz., 
the  whole  inside  of  the  nose,  the  surface  of 
the  projections  or  shelves,  and  the  inside  of 


164  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

the  cavities  in  the  cheek  bone  and  forehead, 
a  fine,  delicate  membrane  is  spread ;  and  over 
a  great  part  of  this  membrane,  little  nerves 
are  distributed,  by  means  of  which  we  smell. 
They  are  branches  of  what  is  called  the 
olfactory  nerve.  Here  I  wish  to  say  again, 
once  for  all,  that  we  cannot  have  feeling  or 
sensation,  in  the  eye,  in  the  ear,  in  the  nose, 
or  anywhere  else,  without  the  aid  of  these 
little  branches  of  the  brain,  called  nerves. 
And  it  aids  us  in  smelling,  to  have  the  parti- 
cles of  bodies  in  the  air  we  breathe  diffused 
over  such  a  very  large  surface. 

I  have  more  than  intimated  that  in  a  natu- 
ral state  of  the  organ  of  smell,  it  could  detect 
all  substances  which  were  likely  to  be  inju- 
rious. This,  though  very  probable,  cannot 
be  fully  proved.  Other  animals,  we  know, 
can  in  general  tell  what  will  injure  them,  by 
its  smell  ;  and  we  can  do  so  in  regard  to  very 
many  things  ;  and  they  can  oftenest  do  this, 
whose  smell  is  most  perfect.  There  is,  there- 
fore, great  reason  for  believing  that,  did  we 
not  early  accustom  our  noses  to  the  smell  of 
strange  mixtures — for,  to  say  nothing  of  snuff, 
tobacco,  &c.,  almost  everything  we  take  is 


THE    DOORS.  165 

some  unnatural  if  not  unwholesome  mixture — 
we  could  distinguish  by  their  smell  those 
things  which  are  hurtful — at  least  in  most 
instances. 

However  this  may  be,  one  thing  is  certain  ; 
which  is,  that  trained  as  we  now  are,  in  regard 
to  eating  and  drinking,  it  would  be  very 
strange  indeed  if  the  sense  of  smell  should 
long  retain  its  original  integrity. 

The  extensive  cavity  of  the  nose  has  an- 
other use.  besides  favoring  the  sense  of  smell. 

'  O 

If  we  hold  our  nose,  and  speak  or  sing,  we 
find  the  sound  greatly  altered,  and  rendered 
quite  disagreeable.  One  intention  of  the  nose, 
therefore,  like  those  hollow  boxes  in  some 
ancient  buildings,  placed  over  the  head  of  the 
speaker,  and  called  sounding  boxes,  is  to 
modify  and  improve  the  voice. 

How  poorly  the  nose  sometimes  answers 
this  purpose,  is  best  seen  in  those  individuals 
who  dry  up  the  nasal  membrane  with  snuff, 
or  make  the  nose  a  chimney  for  tobacco 
smoke — purposes  for  which  we  may  be  very 
sure  they  were  never  designed  by  the  Creator, 
and  to  which  well-informed  people  would  not 
be  apt  to  apply  them. 


166  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

THE  MOUTH. — This  is,  in  many  respects, 
the  most  important  door  of  the  human  frame. 
For  if  the  nose  should  cease  to  perform  its 
office,  we  could  supply  its  place,  in  some 
measure,  by  the  eye,  the  ear,  and  the  touch. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  ear,  and  even  of  the 
eye.  But  if  the  mouth  were  to  fail — if  this 
door  were  closed  forever — there  is  no  substi- 
tute. We  may  indeed  receive  a  part  of  the 
supplies  necessary  to  our  existence,  (I  mean 
air,)  through  the  nose  ;  but  a  far  greater  part 
could  not  be  received  even  in  this  way  ;  and 
our  frames  would  soon  decay,  and  mingle  with 
their  kindred  dust. 

I  have  never  known  but  one  instance  in 
which  any  kind  of  substitute  for  the  mouth 
was  provided.  Several  years  ago,  a  young 
Canadian  by  the  name  of  Alexis  St.  Martin 
was  wounded,  in  the  army,  by  a  ball,  which 
shot  away  a  part  of  the  flesh  of  the  side  and 
stomach.  When  he  recovered,  an  opening 
was  left  somewhat  like  the  mouth  of  a  purse, 
directly  from  his  left  side  into  his  stomach. 
So  complete  was  this  artificial  mouth,  that 
though  it  was  very  tender,  food  and  drink 
could  be  introduced  into  it  through  a  pipe ; 


THE    DOORS.  167 

and  if  care  were  used,  it  could  be  done  without 
pain.  The  contents  of  the  stomach — the 
fluid  contents  at  least — which  had  been  swal- 
lowed by  the  mouth,  could  also  be  taken  out 
at  any  time. 

I  have  seen  Alexis  once  myself;  and  have 
witnessed  what  I  state.  But  this  is  perhaps 
a  solitary  case.  I  do  not  know  that  any  other 
case  of  the  kind  ever  existed,  or  ever  will 
exist  again. 

The  particular  structure  of  the  mouth — 
curious  as  it  is — is  so  well  known  that  it  does 
not  seem  to  require  a  particular  description, 
under  this  head.  When  I  come  to  speak  of 
the  apartments,  and  especially  of  the  furniture 
and  employments  of  the  house  I  live  in,  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  say  more  about  it.  It 
was  only  necessary  to  mention  it  here  as  a 
part  of  the  covering,  and  for  the  sake  of 
method. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


APARTMENTS   AND   FURNITURE. 

'  o. 

General  remarks.  The  external  ear.  Chambers  of  the 
nose.  The  mouth,  internally.  The  salivary  glands. 
Passages  to  the  ear.  The  chest.  Cavity  of  the 
lungs.  The  voice.  The  food  pipe.  The  stomach. 
The  intestines.  Gall  bladder,  &c.  The  abdomen. 
The  apartment  of  the  circulation.  Chambers  of  the 
brain.  Nerves. 

GENERAL,  REMARKS. — There  are  two  kinds 
of  apartments  in  the  house  of  the  soul.  One 
of  these  is  connected  with  outside  doors ;  the 
other  is  not.  Both  are  numerous,  and  both 
are  important.  I  will  begin  with  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  former  ;  and  occasionally  speak,  as 
I  go  along,  of  some  of  the  latter. 

In  many  houses  a  broad  space  or  hall 
extends  through  from  the  door  in  front  to  the 
back  side  of  the  building.  This  space  is  not 
always  either  uniform  or  regular.  Sometimes 


APARTMENTS  AND  FURNITURE.    169 

— and  indeed  usually — if  the  house  has  more 
than  one  story,  it  contains  a  stairway  ;  and 
sometimes  it  includes  a  closet  or  a  room  for 
other  purposes.  Doors  also  in  the  sides  of 
this  hall  connect  it  with  other  apartments. 

Now  the  house  I  live  in  is  constructed  very 
much  on  the  same  general  plan,  except  that, 
as  I  told  you  in  reference  to  the  frame,  there 
is  no  square  work  about  it.  The  beauty  of 
the  internal  parts  of  a  common  dwelling  house 
depends  very  much  on  its  straight  lines,  up- 
right walls,  and  horizontal  floors  and  ceilings  ; 
but  the  beauty  of  the  habitation  of  the  human 
soul  consists,  on  the  contrary,  in  curved  lines. 
Not  an  apartment  can  be  found,  in  good 
order,  in  which  you  can  trace  a  single  straight 
line. 

There  is  one  more  essential  and  important 
difference.  The  rooms  in  many  dwellings  are 
often  partly  or  wholly  empty ;  or  at  least  there 
is  nothing  in  them  except  a  small  quantity  of 
furniture  and  air.  But  except  a  few  very 
small  and  not  very  important  apartments,  all  the 
rooms  of  the  house  I  live  in  are  completely 
filled.  Such  a  thing  as  empty  space  is  hardly 
known  there.  The  furniture,  or  whatever  is 
15 


170  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

in  them,  at  all  times  completely  fills  them  ; 
for  when  anything  is  removed  from  them,  their 
walls  are  accustomed  to  shrink  accordingly  ; 
and  w?hen  anything  is  introduced  into  them, 
these  walls  have  the  power  of  gradually  yield- 
ing so  as  greatly  to  increase  the  capacity  of 
the  apartments. 

It  is  true,  that  the  furniture,  &c.,  in  each 
room,  does  not  so  entirely  fill  it  as  not  to  leave 
place  for  air ;  for  as  I  have  already  said,  all 
the  kind  of  rooms  of  which  I  am  now  treating, 
have  communication  with  the  open  air,  in  such 
a  wray  that  the  air,  in  small  quantity,  can,  and 
probably  does  reach  them  ;  and  much  more 
of  it  would  reach  them,  were  they  not  so 
closely  filled  as  to  prevent  its  admittance. 

But  it  is  time  for  me  to  speak  of  these 
apartments  with  more  particularity.  I  must 
here  tell  you  that  all  the  cavities,  or  pas- 
sages in  the  human  body  which  open  to  the 
air,  such  as  the  ears,  nose,  mouth,  &c.,  are 
lined  with  a  membrane  almost  exactly  like  the 
skin,  only  thinner.  It  has  its  thick  layer,  or 
real  skin,  on  a  thin  cellular  layer ;  then  its 
soft  thin  layer  of  pigment  or  paint,  if  this  has 
any  existence  beyond  the  commencement  of 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         171 

the  openings,  say  at  the  edge  of  the  lips ;  * 
then,  and  lastly,  its  cuticle. 

This  membrane  is  not  called  skin,  however, 
except  on  the  surface.  Its  usual  name  is 
mucous  membrane,  because  it  everywhere 
secret es,  on  its  surface,  more  or  less,  of  a  sub- 
stance which  is  called  mucus. 

EXTERNAL  EAR. — The  passage  into  the  ear, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  is  lined  with  this 
membrane.  But  this  passage  or  cavity  is  so 
small  that  it  can  hardly  be  called  an  apart- 
ment, and  it  has  been  already  sufficiently  de- 
scribed. The  cavities  connected  with  the 
nose  are  of  much  more  consequence. 

CHAMBERS  OF  THE  NOSE. — These,  as  we 
have  seen,  are — 1.  The  hollow  but  very  irreg- 
ular passage  of  the  nose  itself.  2.  The  cavity 
in  each  cheek  bone.  3.  The  cavity  in  the 
forehead,  or  on  each  side  of  the  root  of  the 
nose.  All  these  cavities  are  real  cavities ;  for 

*  Anatomists  are  not  agreed  on  this  point.  The 
general  opinion  is,  that  this  membrane  which  contains 
the  color  does  not  exist  at  all  in  the  internal  cavities 
of  the  body. 


172  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

they  are  situated  in  hollows  in  the  bones,  and 
therefore  their  sides  cannot  fall  together  and 
close  up  the  space. 

All  these  cavities,  moreover,  'become  in 
some  cases  the  seat  of  painful  diseases.  The 
nose  is  subject  to  the  polypus — a  pear-shaped 
swelling  with  a  narrow  neck.  This  sometimes 
renders  our  breathing  difficult ;  and  if  not 
extracted,  has  been  known  to  go  farther,  and 
become  the  means  of  destroying  life.  Even 
if  it  is  extracted,  it  is  very  apt  to  grow  again. 

Painful  diseases  also  occasionally  arise  in 
the  cavity  of  the  cheek.  These  are  some- 
times mistaken  for  tooth-ache.  The  extrac- 
tion of  the  tooth  which  appears  to  cause  the 
pain,  unless  its  roots  extend  through,  quite 
into  the  cavity,  affords,  in  such  cases,  no  per- 
manent relief.  >,< 

Some  kinds  of  headache  probably  have  their 
seat  in  the  hollows  of  the  frontal  or  forehead 
bone,  near  the  root  of  the  nose.  A  very  com- 
mon disease  in  sheep,  is  known  to  be  produced 
by  worms  in  these  hollows,  which  are  pro- 
duced by  some  of  the  species  of  flies  deposit- 
ing their  eggs  up  the  nose  of  these  animals, 
where  they  are  hatched  by  the  heat.  The 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         173 

dull,  heavy  pain  so  often  felt  over  the  eyes, 
especially  when  we  have  what  is  called  a  cold 
in  the  head,  may  be  owing  to  a  slight  inflam- 
mation of  the  membranes  of  this  cavity. 

People  ought  to  be  careful  about  smelling 
things  which  give  them  much  pain.  Proba- 
bly the  use  of  most  of  our  smelling  bottles  is 
injurious,  in  the  end,  to  the  delicate  lining  of 
all  these  "  rooms  "  connected  with  the  nose. 
Snuff  certainly  is,  and  so  is  the  smoking  of 
tobacco  and  cigars  and  the  use  of  opium — so 
common  in  some  countries. 

THE  MOUTH,  INTERNALLY. — The  mouth, 
of  itself,  is  one  of  the  apartments  of  the  hu- 
man body,  and  a  very  curious  apartment  too. 
When  I  spoke  of  it  as  one  of  the  doors,  1 
referred  principally  to  the  aperture  formed  by 
a  cleft  of  the  lips,  or  the  external  mouth ;  and 
not  the  internal  or  more  important  part. 

In  this  chamber — the  entrance  chamber  of 
the  front  door — we  find  the  teeth,  the  tongue, 
the  palate,  and  several  little  glands.  This 
entrance  chamber  is  larger  than  the  hall  or 
space  beyond  it.  Doors  also  open  from  it 
into  several  other  apartments. 
15* 


174  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

THE  SALIVARY  GLANDS. — The  first  of  these 
doors  are  very  small.  They  are  on  the  inside 
of  each  cheek,  nearly  opposite  to  the  smaller 
double  teeth.  They  lead  through  a  very  nar- 
row passage,  scarcely  bigger  than  a  straw,  to 
the  chambers  where  a  large  part  of  the  saliva 
or  spittle  is  secreted  or  made,  which  is  just 
back  of  the  hindermost  part  of  the  jaw-bone, 
and  just  below  the  ear. 

These  chambers  are  neither  large  nor  regu- 
lar. Indeed,  they  scarcely  deserve  the  name 
of  chambers,  any  more  than  do  those  in  the 
upper  part  of  the  socket  of  the  eye,  of  which 
I  have  already  spoken,  and  which  secrete  the 
tears. 

Under  the  tongue  and  partly  before  it,  are 
the  doors  of  passages,  still  shorter  and  smaller 
than  those  I  have  just  mentioned,  and  leading 
to  apartments  of  still  less  importance.  They 
are,  however,  for  the  same  purpose ;  that  of 
secreting  the  saliva. 

PASSAGES  TO  THE  EAR. — Farther  on,  in  the 
upper  and  back  part  of  the  mouth,  are  two  doors  . 
of  considerable  size,  communicating  with  the 
chambers  of  the  rrose  ;  and  in  the  same  region 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         175 

begin  the  passages  which  lead  to  the  middle 
cavity  of  the  ear,  which  has  already  been 
mentioned,  called  the  tympanum.  I  have 
said  enough  about  these  various  apartments  in 
another  place. 

A  little  behind  the  roof  of  the  tongue,  is  an 
opening,  whose  structure  has  a  strong  resem- 
blance to  what  is  usually  called  a  trap  door. 
It  leads  to  the  lungs  or  breathing  apparatus, 
occupying  a  very  large  upper  apartment  of  the 
body.  This  is  one  of  the  most  curious  parts 
of  the  human  system.  No  real  gate  or  door, 
set  on  hinges,  and  guarded  by  an  active  and 
intelligent  porter,  could  better  answer  its  in- 
tended purpose. 

I  have  said  that  there  is  a  strong  resem- 
blance here  to  a  trap  door.  The  passage  to 
the  lungs,  where  it  commences,  is  a  mere  slit ; 
though  it  is  true  it  very  soon  becomes  larger. 
Over  this  slit  is  placed  a  lid  or  flap,  not  unlike 
the  tongue  in  shape,  but  of  course  much 
smaller,  which  fits  to  the  opening  as  exactly 
as  ever  a  trap  door  was  fitted  to  its  frame. 

It  is  not  usually  shut,  however,  except  when 
we  attempt  to  swallow  something.  Then  the 
substance  we  swallow  and  the  motion  of  swal- 


176  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

lowing,  press  it  down  and  close  it  tightly. 
And  it  is  well  that  it  is  so  ;  for  if  it  were 
not,  the  substances  which  we  swallow  would 
often  drop  into  the  passage  to  which  this  trap 
door  opens,  and  cause  us  great  pain,  and  some- 
times disease.  A  mere  crum  of  bread  will 
produce  immense  pain  in  "  going  down  the 
wrong  way,"  as  we  call  it. 

THE,  CHEST. — Beyond  the  door,  the  pas- 
sage greatly  enlarges,  and  proceeds  downwards 
into  the  chest — the  large  apartment  which  I 
have  just  mentioned.  This  apartment  is  one 
of  the  largest  in  the  house  I  live  in,  and  nearly 
fills  the  upper  story.  It  is  one  of  the  kind 
which  have  no  outer  doors,  neither  is  it  con- 
nected with  any  other  cavity  or  apartment. 
It  is  supported  on  all  sides  by  strong  bony 
walls ;  the  breast  bone  in  front,  the  back  bone 
behind,  arid  the  ribs  at  the  sides.  Above,  at 
the  fore  part  of  the  neck,  it  is  of  course  less 
guarded  with  bone  ;  and  at  the  bottom  there 
are  no  bones  at  all.  It  is  separated  from  the 
apartments  of  the  second  or  lower  story,  by 
a  strong  membrane  called  the  diaphragm  or 
midriff. 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         177 

CAVITY  OF  THE  LUNGS. — The  trap  door, 
of  which  I  have  spoken,  does  not  lead  directly 
into  this  large  apartment,  but  only  into  a  bag 
or  sack,  called  the  lungs,  which  lies  in  it,  and 
fills  it ;  and  is  divided  into  two  portions,  one 
on  the  right  side  and  the  other  on  the  left. 
The  passage  from  the  door-way  at  the  top  of 
the  throat  into  the  lungs,  is  at  first  considera- 
bly large,  and  may  be  both  felt  and  seen  at 
the  top  of  the  throat.  It  appears,  at  first 
view,  to  be  a  long  bony  tube,  but  it  is  not  so. 
It  is  made  of  firm  cartilage,  almost  as  hard  as 
bone.  As  soon,  however,  as  it  gets  fairly 
within  the  cavity  of  the  chest,  it  ceases  to  be 
cartilage,  and  becomes  nothing  more  than 
common  membrane. 

The  passage  now  divides  into  two,  like  the 
trunk  of  a  tree  when  it  divides  into  two 
branches.  One  of  these  smaller  passages  goes 
to  the  right  side  of  the  lungs,  the  other  to  the 
left.  Soon  each  of  these  parts  divide  again  ; 
then  those  branches  subdivide  ;  and  it  is  not 
long  before  the  branches  become  as  numerous 
as  the  limbs  of  the  thickest  tree.  And  what 
makes  them  appear  thicker  than  they  really 
are,  is  the  ten  thousand  little  cells,  like  innu- 


178  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

merable  small  berries  among  the  limbs  of  a 
tree  or  shrub,  which  are  everywhere  inter- 
spersed ;  for  every  one  of  the  smallest  pas- 
sages, into  which  the  larger  passages  lead, 
terminates  in  a  little  hollow  cell.  Some  of 
the  cells  are  indeed  larger  than  others,  but 
they  are  all  very  minute,  so  much  so  that 
many  anatomists  formerly  doubted  their  exist- 
ence. 

The  most  correct  resemblance  of  these  pas- 
sages and  cells  or  little  rooms  would,  in  my 
opinion,  be  a  very  thick  branch  of  some 
shrub,  very  full  of  the  minutest  berries  you 
can  conceive  of,  and  without  leaves.  But  you 
must  not  forget  to  think  of  the  shrub  as  hollow 
through  all  its  branches  and  twigs  quite  into 
the  cells,  and  as  divested  of  its  leaves. 

This,  however,  you  are  to  remember,  will 
not  give  you  a  correct  idea  of  the  whole  lungs, 
but  only  of  the  little  tubes  and  cells  for  carry- 
ing and  holding  air. 

In  order  to  make  the  shrub,  in  the  case 
above  mentioned,  look  like  real  lungs,  I  must 
cut  the  extremities  of  the  twigs,  till  I  bring  the 
bush  into  the  right  shape  ;  then  I  must  inter- 
weave something  like  spiders'  web  or  cotton 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         179 

among  all  its  branches,  &c.,  and  thus  fill  up 
all  the  space  ;  and  lastly,  I  must  cover  the 
whole  with  a  pale  red,  but  very  thin  covering. 
Thus  you  see  that  the  trap  door  at  the  top 
of  the  throat,  opens  into  a  large  passage  which 
divides  and  subdivides,  almost  without  end, 
and  leads  into  as  many  little  rooms  or  cells  as 
there  are  of  its  numerous  subdivisions  ;  and 
that  this  whole  mass,  the  lungs,  fills  up  one 
very  large  room  which  has  no  door  or  opening. 

THE  VOICE. — Something  may  properly  be 
said,  in  passing,  about  the  voice. 

That  part  of  the  throat  which  is  chiefly 
concerned  in  the  formation  of  the  voice  is 
called  the  larynx,  and  is  at  the  top  of  the 
trachea  or  large  pipe,  which  goes  from  the 
mouth  to  the  lungs,  and  is  very  plainly  seen, 
as  I  have  elsewhere  said,  projecting  forward 
when  we  throw  the  head  back  ;  though  it  is 
rather  more  prominent  in  males  than  in  fe- 
males. 

This  larynx  may  be  compared  to  a  box, 
and  is  made  up  of  five  pieces  of  cartilage. 
From  its  upper  and  hinder  corners  a  ligament 
goes  out,  which  connects  it  with  the  os  hy- 


180  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

oides — the  little  bone  of  the  throat  before 
mentioned.  In  this  cartilaginous  box  are  four 
ligamentous  cords,  called  vocal  ligaments ; 
and  the  space  which  is  left  between  them  is 
the  glottis — an  opening  like  a  triangular  slit, 
widest  at  the  back  part,  and  over  which  is 
placed  the  epiglottis,  or  trap  door,  which  is 
described  in  another  place.  It  is  the  proper 
and  alternate  contraction  and  expansion  of  the 
glottis,  aided  by  muscles,  upon  which  depends 
the  tone  of  the  voice.  When  the  chink  of 
the  glottis  is  narrowed,  the  voice  is  shrill  or 
acute ;  and  when  the  chink  is  widened,  it 
becomes  grave  or  low. 

The  epiglottis,  or  covering  of  the  glottis,  is 
hence  not  only  useful  to  cover  the  larynx 
while  food  and  drink  are  passing  along  over 
it  to  the  food  pipe,  but  to  assist  in  breathing, 
speaking,  singing,  &c.  But  the  mechanism 
of  the  human  voice  is  too  curious,  as  well  as 
too  complicated,  to  be  made  very  intelligible 
in  such  a  work  as  this. 

THE  FOOD  PIPE. — The  back  part  of  the 
mouth,  where  the  food  pipe  or  passage  to  the 
stomach  commences,  is  funnel-shaped ;  but 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         181 

the  passage  or  food  pipe  itself  is  tolerably 
regular  in  its  shape.  It  proceeds  along  down 
near  the  back  bone  till  it  has  fairly  passed  the 
apartment  of  the  chest,  and  enters  the  borders 
of  the  great  apartment  below  it,  occupying 
the  second  or  lower  story  of  the  building. 
When  it  reaches  the  confines  of  this  apart- 
ment, the  passage  enlarges  into  a  spacious 
saloon.  This  is  the  stomach. 

THE  STOMACH. — The  human  stomach  has 
some  resemblance,  in  shape,  to  the  bag  of 
the  Scottish  instrument  of  music  called  the 
bag-pipe.  It  lies  directly  across  the  body, 
just  under  the  edge  of  the  ribs,  and  in  such 
close  contact  with  the  diaphragm  or  floor  of 
the  apartment  which  contains  the  lungs,  that 
the  latter  seem  to  rest  directly  upon  it.  The 
place  where  the  food  pipe  enters  is  called  the 
cardiac  orifice,  and  the  termination  or  outlet 
f  of  this  spacious  saloon  is  called  the  pylorus, 
or  pyloric  orifice.  The  meaning  of  the  word 
cardiac  is  not  of  much  consequence ;  the 
word  pylorus  will  be  explained  hereafter. 

16 


182  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


In  this  representation  of  the  human  stomach, 
the  letter  a  represents  the  lower  part  of  the 
gullet,  or  food  pipe  ;  c,  the  left  or  large  extre- 
mity ;  d}  the  end  or  small  extremity,  and  e,  the 
pylorus.  The  stomach  of  an  adult  will  hold, 
when  moderately  stretched,  about  two  or  three 
pints. 

THE  INTESTINES. — These  commence  at 
the  pyloric  extremity  of  the  stomach.  They 
wind  about  in  many  and  various  directions,  so 
that  though  it  is  scarcely  more  than  a  foot 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         183 

from  the  place  where  they  begin  to  the  place 
where  they  end,  their  whole  length  is  five  or 
six  times  the  height  of  the  individual.  Along 
with  the  stomach,  they  fill  up  almost  the  entire 
cavity  or  chamber  of  the  abdomen.  They 
are  usually  described  in  two  divisions — the 
small  and  the  large  intestines. 

The  small  intestines  begin  at  the  pylorus, 
as  above  mentioned.  The  first  part  of  them 
is  called  the  duodenum.  This  turns  down- 
ward and  backward  from  the  pylorus  towards 
the  right  side.  There  it  makes  another  turn 
to  the  left,  where  it  becomes  the  jejunum. 
This,  after  winding  about  in  various  directions, 
terminates  in  the  ilium.  The  duodenum  is 
comparatively  short,  perhaps  not  more  than  a 
foot  or  so  in  length  :  but  the  jejunum  is  longer. 
The  ilium,  however,  is  longer  than  all  the  rest 
of  the  intestines  :  in  a  person  six  feet  high,  it 
is  probably  more  than  twenty  feet  long. 

At  the  lower  end  of  the  ilium  come  the 
large  intestines.  These,  too,  are  generally 
described  in  three  or  four  divisions  or  parts. 
The  first  of  these  is  called  the  colon. 

Just  below  the  place  where  they  unite,  the 
intestine  suddenly  enlarges,  so  as  to  form  a 


184  THE    HOUSE    1    LIVE    IN. 

kind  of  bag  or  purse,  with  its  hollow  part  down- 
ward. This  hollow  part,  or  pouch,  is  called  the 
ccecum.  Something  in  shape  not  unlike  the 
finger  of  a  glove,  projects  from  it,  of  the  length 
of  three  or  four  inches,  but  is  closed  at  its 
lower  end,  so  that  nothing  can  pass  through  it. 
This  is  called  the  appendage  of  the  ccecum. 

The  colon,  continuing  its  course,  first  as- 
cends upward  on  the  right  side,  and  crossing 
the  abdomen  just  under  the  stomach,  and  over 
the  duodenum,  is  called,  as  it  crosses,  the 
transverse  arch  of  the  colon.  Then,  turning 
a  little  backwards,  it  goes  along  down  the  left 
side,  winding  its  way,  in  the  shape  of  the  letter 
S,  till,  coming  near  to  the  extremity  of  the 
body,  it  is  called  the  rectum. 

Lying  in  front  of,  and  spread  out  over  the 
intestines,  and  hanging,  as  it  were,  from  the 
stomach,  as  may  be  seen  at  g,  in  the  last 
engraving,  is  a  fatty  membrane,  called  the 
omentum,  or  caul.  This  membrane  runs  in 
among  the  smaller  intestines,  and  seems  to 
enclose  them,  as  if  they  were  wrapped  up  in 
it.  Connected  with  it  also  are  numerous  little 
glands.  They  are  called  the  glands  of  the 
mesentery. 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         185 

THE  GALL  BLADDER. — Not  far  beyond 
the  stomach  is  an  opening  or  door,  leading 
through  a  duct  to  the  gall  bladder  and  liver. 
The  chambers  of  these  two  organs  are  little 
more  spacious  than  those  of  the  glands  already 
spoken  of  which  secrete  the  saliva.  The  gall 
bladder  may  be  as  large  as  a  man's  thumb,  or 
sometimes  larger.  In  the  same  neighborhood 
is  the  pancreas,  or  sweet  bread,  between  which 
and  the  main  passage  through  the  body  there 
is  also  a  communication. 

ABDOMEN. — In  this  lower  story  of  the  house 
I  live  in — the  abdomen — there  are  several 
other  apartments  besides  those  I  have  already 
described,  some  of  which  open  externally,  and 
others  do  not.  But  I  must  now  describe 
another  class  of  apartments — those  which  do 
not  have  communication  with  the  air. 

One  of  these  has  already  been  mentioned : 
it  is  the  cavity  of  the  chest.  Another  is  the 
cavity  of  the  cranium,  or  bones  of  the  head. 
Another  still  is  in  the  central  part  of  the  brain, 
or  contents  of  the  cranium.  The  last,  but  most 
curious  and  most  important  which  I  shall  de- 
scribe, is  the  great  cavity  of  the  ctrculation. 
16* 


186  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

APARTMENT  OF  THE  CIRCULATION. — This 
is  a  larger  apartment  than  many  would  at  first 
suppose.  It  must  of  course  be  large,  to  con- 
tain, as  it  does,  twelve  or  fifteen  quarts  of 
blood.  It  is  like  the  hollow  channels  of  two 
great  underground  reservoirs  or  rivers,  formed 
by  the  union  of  ten  thousand  thousand  larger 
or  smaller  (but  most  of  them  very  small) 
streams,  running  side  by  side  with  each  other, 
and  in  an  opposite  direction ;  and  which, 
having  no  communication  with  each  other  in 
their  course,  have  also  no  outlet — at  least  none 
of  any  considerable  size. 

To  talk  here  about  the  circulation  of  blood, 
when  my  professed  object  is'  to  describe  a 
chamber,  may  perhaps  seem  out  of  place ;  but 
to  me,  it  appears  indispensable.  For  such  is 
the  irregularity  of  this  circulatory  apartment, 
that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  describe  it,  in 
any  other  way  than  by  telling  you  something 
of  its  course  and  contents.  But  I  will  be 
very  short. 

You  may  first  think  of  all  these  streams  as 
if  they  were  filled  with  blood  ;  and  afterward, 
as  if  emptied  of  their  blood,  and  hollow.  In 
the  latter  case,  if  a  quantity  of  liquid,  such  as 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         187 

water,  or  melted  wax,  or  even  blood,  were 
thrown  into  the  cavities  of  the  heart  by  means 
of  a  syringe,  and  if  considerable  effort  were 
made,  the  liquid  thrown  in  would  soon  run 
into  all  the  large  and  small  branches  of  this 
multiform  channel  or  apartment,  and  fill  it 
entirely  ;  and  the  amount  it  would  contain,  as 
I  have  before  intimated,  would  be  in  an  adult 
equal  to  three  or  four  gallons — equal  in  quan- 
tity to  a  common  sized  pail-full. 

Thus  you  see  that  though  the  apartment  of 
the  circulation  is  strangely  irregular,  it  is  nev- 
ertheless a  very  spacious  apartment — almost 
if  not  quite  equal  to  the  whole  cavity  of  the 
chest,  in  which  the  lungs  and  heart  are  placed  ; 
and  not  much  inferior,  in  point  of  size,  to  the 
cavity  below  it — that  of  the  abdomen. 

But  I  must  tell  you  here  something  more  of 
that  part  of  the  circulatory  apartment  which 
lies  in  the  heart  itself,  or  in  what  may  be 
called  the  little  sea  or  lake  into  which  all 
these  subterranean  rivers  constantly  pour  their 
various  crimson  floods. 

The  heart  has  really  four  cavities  in  it,  two 
on  the  right  •  side  and  two  on  the  left.  The 
blood  which  has  been  sent  out  into  all  parts 


188  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

of  the  body  through  the  arteries,  returns  to 
the  first  or  upper  cavity  of  the  right  side — the 
auricle — and  then  passes  through  into  the  right 
ventricle.  As  soon  as  this  ventricle  is  full,  it 
contracts  and  presses  its  contents,  the  blood, 
into  a  great  artery,  called  the  pulmonary 
artery,  which  carries  it  to  all  parts  of  the  lungs, 
whence  it  comes  back  into  the  left  side  of  the 
heart — first  into  the  left  auricle,  and  next  into 
the  left  ventricle.  From  the  latter  it  is  dis- 
charged, when  the  heart  contracts,  into  the 
great  artery,  or  aorta,  and  sent  all  over  the 
body. 

These  four  smaller  cavities,  or  chambers  of 
the  heart,  taken  together,  hold,  in  an  adult, 
about  three  or  four  ounces  of  blood,  or  nearly 
a  gill.  The  length  of  an  adult  heart,  mea- 
sured on  the  outside,  is  about  five  inches ;  or 
we  may  say,  in  general  terms,  that  it  is  about 
the  size  of  a  man's  fist. 

Something  more  is  to  be  said,  hereafter, 
about  the  heart — its  cavities,  structure,  motion, 
situation,  &c. ;  but  I  have  said  all  that  is  ne- 
cessary in  order  to  give  a  general  idea  of  the 
circulatory  apartment. 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         189 

CHAMBERS  OF  THE  BRAIN. — Before  I  de- 
scribe these  I  must  say  something  more  about 
the  brain  itself,  though  I  have  partly  described 
it  in  another  place. 


Here  is  a  picture  of  some  of  the  bones  of 
the  cranium — those  which  contain  the  brain. 
It  is  the  same  plate  which  you  have  seen 
elsewhere  ;  but  for  the  sake  of  convenience, 
I  have  introduced  it  again  in  this  place. 

When  I  was  very  young,  and  heard  about 
the  brain,  I  used  to  wonder  in  what  part  of  the 
head  it  was  situated.  I  had  seen  the  brain 
of  several  domestic  animals,  such  as  the  ox, 
the  calf,  the  swine,  and  the  lamb ;  and  as  the 
brains  in  these  appear  to  occupy  only  a  small 
part  of  the  head,  I  concluded  that  the  human 
orain  did  not.  Some  person,  as  ignorant  as 
myself,  told  me  that  the  human  brains  lay  in 
the  forehead ;  and  with  this  opinion  I  grew 


190  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

up.  But  since  I  became  a  man,  I  have  found 
out  that  they  extended  farther. 

The  color  and  general  appearance  of  the 
human  brain  are  not  unlike  those  of  domestic 
animals  ;  but  it  is  considerably  larger  in  propor- 
tion to  the  size  of  the  body,  than  that  of 
almost  any  other  known  animal. 

To  give  you  a  more  correct  idea  of  its 
exact  size,  however,  just  take  a  piece  of  twine 
and  tie  it  round  your  head  from  the  bottom 
of  the  eye-brows  or  edge  of  the  forehead  to 
the  nape  of  the  neck,  letting  it  come  down 
close  behind  the  root  of  the  ear.  Now  all 
above  this  string,  except  the  skull  itself,  and 
the  skin,  flesh,  hair,  &c.,  is  brain :  and  the 
whole  covering,  bone,  flesh,  skin,  &c.,  can 
hardly  be  more  than  half  an  inch  thick,  in  the 
thickest  part,  and  in  some  places  scarce  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  thick  ;  so  that  there  is,  as 
you  perceive,  a  very  considerable  quantity  of 
the  brain.  There  is  even  a  little  brain  below 
the  line  of  the  string,  but  not  much,  unless 
that  may  be  called  brain  which  runs  down 
into  the  hollow  cavity  of  the  spine,  like  a 
large  whitish  cord,  and  which  I  have  already 
told  you  is  the  spinal  marrow. 


APARTMENTS    AND   FURNITURE.         191 

The  substance  of  which  the  brain  is  made 
up  is  usually  described  by  two  names — cere- 
brum and  cerebellum.  The  former  is  the 
upper  and  front  part,  which  is  by  far  the 
largest ;  the  latter  is  the  hinder  and  lower 
portion,  and  is  comparatively  small.  Both 
are  united,  and  are  closely  covered  by  three 
distinct  coats  or  membranes. 

The  cerebrum  is  cleft,  as  it  were,  on  the 
top,  from  the  fore  part  to  the  back  part  of  the 
head,  so  as  to  form  it  into  two  large  portions, 
or  hemispheres,  as  they  are  called — the  right 
and  left.  And  yet  these  two  halves  or  hemis- 
pheres lie  close  together  side  by  side,  and  are 
only  divided  at  the  cleft  by  a  membrane. 

There  are  clefts  or  fissures,  however,  all 
over  the  brain  ;  but  the  one  I  have  just  men- 
tioned is  in  a  straight  line,  whereas  the  others 
are  winding.  Some  of  them,  however,  are 
quite  deep — so  deep  as  almost  to  separate  each 
hemisphere  of  the  brain  into  several  lobes 
or  distinct  portions. 

The  outside  membranous  covering  of  the 
brain  is  called  the  dura  mater.  Next  is  the 
tunica  arachnoidea,  or  spider's-web  membrane, 
which  is  very  thin  indeed  ;  and  under  both 


192  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

of  these  is  the  pla  mater.  The  last  goes,  or 
as  anatomists  say,  dips  into  all  the  clefts  or 
hollows  of  the  brain,  and  also  into  all  its 
chambers — of  which  there  are  many,  as  we 
shall  yet  see. 

I  have  elsewhere  told  you  the  weight  of  the 

brain.     As  to  its  internal  appearance,  it  is  so 

wonderfully  and  curiously  complicated,  that  it 

.  is   almost   impossible   to   explain  the  matter 

clearly  without  plates,  or  even  with  them. 

But  as  to  the  general  shape  of  this  organ,  I 
may  perhaps  give  you  an  imperfect  idea — an 
idea  somewhat  better  than  none — by  saying 
that  the  cerebrum  or  large  division  of  the 
brain  somewhat  resembles  the  half  of  an  egg 
lying  down  on  its  cut  or  divided  part,  only 
that  it  appears  wrinkled,  and  full  of  the  little 
clefts  or  fissures  I  have  mentioned  ;  and  the 
great  cleft  in  the  middle  seems  almost  to  cut 
the  half  egg  into  two  parts  or  quarters. 

The  brain,  however,  is  not  exactly  of  the 
color  of  an  egg  shell,  for  it  is  of  a  grayish 
color ;  though  much  whiter,  like  marrow,  in 
the  inside.  It  is  from  this  white  part  that  the 
nerves  proceed ;  which  I  shall  describe  pres- 
ently. 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         193 

The  cerebellum — little  brain — is  only  about 
jne  fifth  as  large  as  the  cerebrum,  and  is 
below  the  hind  part  of  it,  near  the  neck. 

I  have  spoken  of  numerous  clefts  in  the 
brain.  Some  of  these,  on  the  under  side,  run 
in  so  deep  as  to  form  what  I  shall  call  cham- 
bers— though  they  are  usually  called  ventri- 
cles— in  the  very  inside  of  the  brain  itself.  It 
is  these  chambers  or  ventricles — of  which 
there  are  four  or  five — which  contain  the 
water,  in  the  disease  called  hydroccphalus,  or 
dropsy  in  the  head  ;  although  in  the  natural 
state,  they  scarcely  contain  anything.  Like 
the  stomach  and  all  the  organs  of  the  body 
which  are  considered  as  hollow,  they  are  only 
hollow  in  that  they  will  hold  substances,  if 
required  ;  but  when  there  is  nothing  in  them, 
their  sides  fall  together  and  leave  no  vacancy. 
There  are  no  real  hollows  in  the  human  body, 
with  nothing  in  them  but  air,  (as  you  may 
possibly  suppose  from  what  I  have  said  here 
and  elsewhere,)  except  perhaps  the  ear,  and 
nose,  and  mouth,  and  a  few  small  places  in 
the  bones. 

The  philosopher  Descartes,  thought  the 
soul  resided  in  one  of  the  chambers  of  the 
17 


194  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

brain  ;  but  the  immortal  spirit  can  hardly  be 
said  to  reside  anywhere  in  the  body.  It  is 
connected  with  all  parts,  especially  the  brain, 
spinal  marrow  and  nerves  ;  and  only  departs 
at  the  period  which  we  call  death. 

NERVES. — From  the  under  side  of  the 
brain,  nine  or  ten  pairs  of  nerves  or  branches 
of  the  white  interior  part  of  the  brain  run  off 
through  the  skull,  which  at  its  base  or  bottom 
has  many  little  apertures,  and  is  quite  ragged 
in  its  appearance,  and  after  dividing  and  sub- 
dividing almost  without  number,  distribute 
their  branches  over  the  various  parts  to  which 
they  are  sent. 

The  first  pair — the  olfactory  nerves — go 
out  from  the  fore  part  of  the  bottom  of  the 
brain,  and  are  spread  over  the  membrane  that 
lines  the  nose  and  its  cavities,  to  enable  us  to 
smell. 

Next  behind  them  come  out  the  optic 
nerves  :  this  pair  goes  into  the  interior  of  the 
eye  to  form  the  seat  of  vision — the  retina. 

The  third  pair — smaller  than  the  first  or 
the  second — are  distributed  to  the  muscles  of 
the  eyeballs.  The  fourth  pair,  which  are 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         195 

very  small  indeed,  also  go  to  the  same  mus 
cles. 

The  fifth  pair  of  nerves  is  very  large,  and 
is  divided  into  three  great  branches.  The 
branches  of  the  first  division  are  spread,  in 
great  numbers,  over  the  forehead,  upper  eye- 
lid and  nostril ;  those  of  the  second  over  the 
upper  jaw,  the  palate  and  the  adjoining  parts; 
while  those  of  the  third  are  distributed  to  the 
muscles  and  glands  of  the  lower  jaw.  The 
uses  of  this  fifth  pair  of  nerves  are  probably 
but  very  imperfectly  known. 

The  sixth  pair,  like  the  third  and  fourth, 
are  distributed  to  the  muscles  of  the  eyeballs. 

Next  in  order  as  we  proceed  backwards 
along  the  floor  of  the  brain,  is  the  seventh 
pair,  in  two  grand  divisions — the  portio  mollis 
and  the  portio  dura.  The  first,  after  entering 
the  internal  part  of  the  ear,  splits  into  many 
branches,  and  forms  the  soft  pulp  found  in  that 
part  of  the  ear  called  the  labyrinth.  The 
second,  or  portio  dura,  is  spread  over  the 
muscles  of  the  internal  ear,  the  parotid  gland, 
the  muscles  of  the  face,  &c. 

The  eighth  pair  of  nerves  sends  off  twigs 
or  branches  to  the  back  part  of  the  throat  and 


196  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

the  root  of  the  tongue,  and  then  runs  down- 
ward by  the  side  of  a  large  artery  called  the 
carotid,  artery,  and  is  distributed  to  the  heart. 

The  ninth  pair  is  chiefly  spread  over  the 
tongue  and  its  muscles. 

There  is  another  nerve,  called  the  great 
sympathetic — formed  by  threads  from  the  fifth, 
sixth  and  eighth  pairs  already  mentioned,  and 
perhaps  from  several  others — which,  though  it 
does  not  rise  directly  from  the  brain  itself,  is 
yet  a  very  important  one.  It  extends  along 
down  by  the  spine,  enters  the  chambers  of  the 
chest  and  the  abdomen,  and  sends  branches  to 
all  the  important  organs  contained  therein.  It 
appears  to  form  a  bond  of  communication 
between  the  nerves  already  mentioned,  and 
those  which  are  to  be  mentioned  presently  ; 
and  between  the  parts  or  organs  which  they 
respectively  supply.  It  is  by  means  of  this 
nerve  that  when  one  organ  of  the  body  is 
diseased,  it  disturbs  the  action  of  the  others, 
and  the  contrary  ;  so  that  when  one  member 
suffers,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it,  and 
when  one  rejoices  or  acts  happily,  all  the  rest 
rejoice  or  act  happily  with  it.  Hence  the  doc- 
trine of  sympathy  in  the  human  system,  and 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.         197 

hence  the  name  of  this  nerve — the  great  sym- 
pathetic. 

Next  come  the  spinal  nerves.  In  the  sides 
of  the  pile  of  bones  called  the  spine,  are  holes 
all  along  from  top  to  bottom,  which  are  formed 
by  notches  in  each  vertebra.  There  are  also 
six  or  seven .  pairs  of  holes  similar  to  these, 
through  the  sides  of  the  strong  bone  below,  on 
which  the  spine  stands.  Through  each  of  the 
whole  of  these  holes  run  large  branches  of  the 
spinal  marrow,  which  are  also  called  nerves. 
These  are  whitish  like  the  marrow  itself,  and 
like  the  brain.  Their  number  is  about  thirty 
on  each  side.  They  part  into  branches  almost 
innumerable,  and  are  distributed  to  nearly  all 
parts  of  the  body. 

A  puncture  with  the  point  of  the  smallest 
needle  gives  us  pain,  but  this  could  not  be 
unless  there  were  nerves  in  the  part  which  is 
wounded.  They  are  so  numerous  that  if 
there  were .  any  way  of  destroying  all  parts 
of  the  human  body  except  the  nerves,  without 
in  the  slightest  degree  injuring  or  displacing 
the  latter,  they  would  present  a  large  mass — 
whitish,  indeed,  and  not  quite  so  firm — but 
resembling,  in  shape,  the  complete  and  perfect 
17* 


198  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

living  body.  The  arteries — the  vessels  which 
carry  blood  from  the  heart  to  all  parts  of  the 
body — if  all  else  were  destroyed,  would  pro- 
bably present  the  same  appearance ;  and  so 
would  the  veins. 

There  is,  however,  one  important  difference 
between  the  nerves  and  the .  blood-vessels. 
The  latter  are  all  hollow  tubes,  but  the  nerves 
are  not  known  to  be  so.  The  large  ones  cer- 
tainly are  not.  Some  have  supposed  that  the 
little  white  pulpy  threads  or  fibres  of  which 
they  are  all  made  up  are  hollow  >  but  this  is 
not  generally  believed. 

I  have  dwelt  the  longer  on  the  chambers 
of  the  brain  and  the  nerves,  their  furniture, 
because  it  is  a  subject  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance. But  I  must  now  close  with  a  short 
account  of  the  uses  of  this  wonderful  ap- 
paratus. 

The  use  of  the  nerves  is  to  produce  feeling, 
and  to  convey  feeling,  or  sensation  rather,  to 
the  brain.  I  have  already  told  you  that  nine 
pairs  of  nerves  go  out  from  the  bottom  of  the 
brain,  and  thirty  from  the  spinal  marrow  which 
projects  from  the  brain.  When  the  rays  of 
light  fall  on  the  retina  of  the  eye — at  the 


APARTMENTS    AND    FURNITURE.          199 

back  part  of  its  internal  cavity — the  optic 
nerve,  which  forms  the  retina,  communicates 
the  sensation  to  the  brain  in  such  a  manner 
that  we  see  ;  when  sounds  fall  into  the  ear, 
they  affect  the  brain  through  the  nerves  of  the 
ear  in  such  a  manner  that  we  hear,  and  so  of 
all  other  nerves  in  every  part  of  the  body. 
That  is,  if  an  impression  is  made  upon  any 
part  of  the  body  so  that  we  have  a  sensation 
of  pain  or  pleasure,  it  is  because  a  nerve  has 
been  touched  or  compressed,  and  it  has  com- 
municated the  impression  to  the  brain  by 
means  of  one  or  more  nerves.  The  connec- 
tion is  as  quick  as  thought.  If  you  prick  a 
finger  or  toe,  the  impression  goes  to  the  brain 
so  quick,  that  we  seem  to  feel  the  pain  at  the 
same  instant.  We  should  think  it  strange  if 
when  we  dropped  a  small  stone  into  a  stream 
at  its  very  beginning  or  fountain,  it  should 
agitate  the  water  to  the  very  mouth  of  the 
river  it  helps  to  form,  and  even  disturb  the 
ocean  into  which  it  empties,  in  the  short  space 
of  a  minute  ;  and  yet  the  impression  on  the 
extremity  of  a  nerve  runs  along  it  till  it  unites 
with  other  branches,  then  along  the  large 
division  till  that  unites  with  some  other ;  and 


200  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

so  on  till  it  reaches  the  brain,  with  a  rapidity 
much  greater  than  to  have  the  stone  affect  the 
stream  at  its  mouth  in  a  minute  after  it  was 
dropped  into  its  source. 

If  by  any  means  a  nerve  is  cut  in  two, 
and  there  is  no  other  nerve  that  goes  to 
the  same  part,  you  may  prick,  cut  or  other- 
wise wound  the  part  as  much  as  you  please, 
without  giving  much  if  any  pain.  This  shows 
that  what  I  have  already  told  you  is  true.  I 
might  add  also,  that  if  the  nerves  which  go  to 
an  arm  or  a  leg  could  all  be  cut  off  at  once, 
and  that  too  without  injuring  any  of  the  other 
parts,  the  limb  would  remain  nearly  or  wholly 
useless. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


FURNITURE  OF  THE  HOUSE,  AND  ITS  USES. 

The  blood.  Preparing  the  blood.  Mastication,  or 
chewing.  A  trap  door.  Digestion.  Formation  of 
chyle.  Lacteals.  Absorbents.  Materials  for  blood. 
Nature  of  the  blood.  Nature  of  secretion.  Motion 
of  the  heart.  Pulsation.  Force  of  the  heart.  Ca- 
pillaries. 

WE  come  now  to  the  furniture  of  the  house 
I  live  in,  and  its  various  uses.  This  will  make 
a  long,  but  I  trust  an  interesting  chapter. 

Here,  however,  our  similitude  begins  to  fail ; 
for  while  the  house  I  occupy,  like  all  other 
houses,  is  liable  to  daily  waste  and  decay, 
there  are,  in  the  human  habitation,  certain 
pieces  of  furniture — perhaps  I  should  say 
machinery — by  means  of  which,  if  properly 
managed,  repairs  are  going  on  equal,  at  least, 
to  the  waste.  But  in  no  ordinary  dwelling 
can  any  such  process  be  found.  All  dwell- 
ings may  indeed  be  repaired,  but  it  is  usually 


202  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

by  external  aid,  and  not  by  any  operation  of 
their  own  from  within. 

The  habitation  of  the  human  soul  is  kept  in 
repair  partly  by  means  of  the  rivers  which  run 
through  the  circulatory  apartment.  It  was 
this  fact  that  made  it  necessary  for  me  to 
dwell  so  long  upon  this  apartment  in  the 
previous  chapter. 

THE  BLOOD. — There  is  nothing  in  this 
part  of  the  universe  which  so  much  resembles 
the  economy  of  the  human  body,  and  the 
means  by  which  its  constant  waste  is  supplied, 
and  the  whole  kept  in  repair,  as  the  manner 
of  watering  and  supplying  the  face  of  the 
earth.  Evaporation,  and  the  growth  of  plants 
and  animals,  are  constantly  wasting  or  drying 
up  the  soil ;  but  there  are  numerous  hidden 
streams,  some  of  them  very  small,  that  wind 
their  way  in  almost  every  direction,  and  con- 
tinually furnish  new  moisture. 

It  is  true,  there  are  also  large  streams, 
which  appear  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  very 
different  from  what  is  found  on  the  outside  of 
the  human  body  ;  neither  is  it  to  be  forgotten 
that  the  earth  is  watered,  in  part,  directly 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  203 

from  the  atmosphere.  Still  there  is  a  striking 
resemblance  between  the  two  great  processes. 
The  one  is  to  supply  constantly  the  wants  of 
a  world  ;  the  other,  to  supply  the  demands 
and  repair  the  waste,  &c.,  of  what,  for  the 
sake  of  its  near  relation  to  its  celestial  habit- 
ant, is  worth  far  more  than  any  known  globe. 

PREPARING  THE  BLOOD. — But  how  is  this 
blood,  in  its  ten  thousand  thousand  crimson 
streams,  prepared  and  supplied  to  the  human 
body  ? — for  it  must  first  be  made  before  it  can 
be  supplied.  It  is  a  most  curious,  and  indeed 
wonderful  process,  and  one  which  demands  a 
particular  description. 

MASTICATION,  OR  CHEWING. — I  have  al- 
ready told  you  about  the  teeth,  their  number, 
their  uses,  &LC.  I  am  now  ready  to  say  that 
they  are  principally  designed  for  breaking  up 
and  grinding  the  food — the  material  of  which 
the  blood  is  to  be  made.  For  the  great 
Author  of  our  frames  has  so  ordered  it,  that 
as  fast  as  our  systems  waste,  a  feeling  arises 
in  us  which  we  call  hunger ;  and  we  take 
much  pleasure  in  gratifying  that  hunger.  But 


204       ,  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    JN. 

in  order  to  gratify  it  properly,  and  to  recruit 
the  waste  of  the  body,  there  is  a  work  for  the 
teeth  to  perform,  of  which  I  have  just  spoken. 

But  while  the  teeth  are  breaking  in  pieces 
our  food,  the  salivary  glands,  described  in 
another  place,  are  continually  secreting  anet 
pouring  through  small  tubes  into  the  mouth  a 
quantity  of  saliva  just  sufficient  to  moisten  it, 
and  render  it  somewhat  of  a  pulpy  consistence. 
There  are  also  other  little  glands,  under  the 
tongue,  which  assist  in  the  work. 

When  the  food  is  beaten  fine  and  moistened 
sufficiently,  it  is  gathered  together  upon  the 
tongue,  and  by  a  series  of  curious  movements, 
which  I  have  not  room  in  a  work  like  this  to 
explain,  it  is  pushed  along  beyond  the  root  of 
the  tongue  to  the  top  of  the  gullet,  or  food 
pipe,  whence,  by  muscular  action,  it  is  con- 
veyed downward  into  the  stomach. 

In  its  passage  towards  this  organ,  it  goes 
directly  over  the  trap  door  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken  ;  and  were  not  this  little  flap 
most  ingeniously  contrived  for  the  purpose  of 
preventing  it,  at  least  in  part,  it  would  some- 
times drop  into  it.  If  we  laugh,  or  cough,  or 
speak,  or  sing,  while  the  food  is  passing  by 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  205 

this  opening,  there  is  very  great  danger  of  its 
falling  into  it. 

TRAP  DOOR. — It  is  true  that  this  door  usu- 
ally closes  when  anything  approaches,  almost 
as  quickly  as  I  formerly  told  you  the  eye 
does,  when  anything  approaches  that  organ. 
But  it  is  also  true  that,  as  in  the  case  of  the  eye, 
it  does  not  always  close  quite  soon  enough ; 
and  substances  sometimes  actually  fall  into 
the  trachea.  When  they  do,  they  produce 
irritation  and  tickling,  and  induce  us  to  cough, 
which  occasionally  throws  up  the  offending 
substance.  When  it  does  not,  the  coughing 
frequently  soon  subsides  ;  and  if  the  substance 
is  nothing  harder  than  a  piece  of  bread,  it 
dissolves  gradually,  and  is  slowly  coughed  up ; 
but  if  it  is  something  harder,  as  a  piece  of  a 
chestnut  or  a  kernel  of  corn,  it  usually  causes 
trouble  ;  which,  unless  the  surgeon  can  remove 
it  by  cutting  open  the  windpipe,  ends  in  death. 

While  writing  this  chapter,  I  have  read  in 
the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal,  of 
a  little  girl, ,  five  years  old,  who,  in  playing 
with  a  brass  nail,  was  so  unfortunate  as  to 
have  it  fall  into  her  windpipe.  It  produced  a 
38 


206  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

little  coughing,  and  then  all  was  quiet ;  and 
the  parents  and  friends  thought  all  danger 
was  over.  But  more  than  a  year  afterward, 
on  taking  a  cold,  a  bad  cough,  with  hectic 
fever,  night  sweats,  and  bleeding  at  the  mouth, 
came  on,  and  she  died  of  a  rapid  consumption. 
On  opening  her  body,  the  brass  nail  was 
found  imbedded  in  her  lungs. 

I  hope  every  young  person  who  reads  this 
account,  will  avoid  holding  nails,  pins,  buttons, 
&c.,  in  the  mouth,  as  well  as  all  talking  and 
laughing  while  eating;  for  it  is  at  least  dan- 
gerous, and  may  prove  fatal. 

When  the  food  is  fairly  beyond  the  tongue 
and  the  little  trap  door,  it  goes  into  the  top 
of  the  food  pipe,  as  into  a  sort  of  funnel  top. 
Below,  this  pipe,  is  smaller ;  but,  if  we  eat 
and  swallow  slowly,  not  so  small  as  to  hinder 
the  food  from  passing.  Still,  if  we  do  not  half 
masticate  our  food,  or  if  we  swallow  it  too 
rapidly,  it  is  sometimes  retained  in  this  passage, 
and  causes  great  trouble.  I  have  known  per- 
sons come  very  near  dying,  by  having  a  large 
piece  of  meat,  or  some  hard  or  unchewed  sub- 
stance, get  lodged  here  ;  and  it  was  only  by  the 
help  of  the  surgeon,  that  their  lives  were  saved. 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  207 

DIGESTION. — The  food,  however,  at  length 
arrives  in  the  stomach.  Here,  after  remain- 
ing a  short  time,  it  gradually  softens  still  more 
than  before,  and  becomes  a  grayish  or  whitish 
pulp,  called  chyme.  The  formation  of  this 
chyme  is  greatly  hastened  by  a  fluid  called 
the  gastric  juice.  This  does  not  travel  a  long 
way  through  pipes,  like  the  saliva,  but  seems 
to  ooze  as  it  were  out  of  the  inside  of  the 
stomach,  in  large  drops,  as  you  have  seen  the 
drops  of  water  or  sweat  from  the  forehead  of 
a  laboring  man,  in  a  hot  day.  This  process 
is  called  a  secretion. 

When  the  outside  of  the  mass  of  food  which 
is  in  the  stomach  becomes  soft,  it  is  slowly 
conveyed,  by  a  curious  motion  of  this  organ, 
from  its  left  towards  its  right  end,  to  what  I 
have  already  told  you  is  called  the  pylorus, 
by  which  term  is  meant  the  door  or  outer  gate 
of  the  stomach — or,  as  some  call  it,  the  door- 
keeper. It  may  well  be  called  a  door-keeper, 
for  it  really  seems  to  exercise  a  sort  of  choice  ; 
for  if  anything  presents  itself  which  is  not 
proper  for  the  system,  or  rather,  is  not  fitted 
to  make  blood,  it  does  not  for  some  time  suffer 
it  to  pass ;  though  after  the  substance  has 


208  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

repeated  its  efforts  to  pass  a  great  many  times, 
it  appears  to  yield,  as  if  to  importunity.  True 
chyme,  made  of  good  and  proper  materials,  it 
never  refuses,  but  suffers  it  to  go  on  at  once 
into  that  portion  of  the  intestines  next  beyond 
the  stomach,  called  the  duodenum. 

The  outside  of  the  mass  of  food  having 
been  subjected  to  the  process  I  have  been 
describing,  that  portion  directly  under  it  is 
submitted  to  the  same  treatment,  and  so  on, 
till  the  middle  portion  is  brought  into  contact 
with  the  gastric  juice,  and  the  whole  mass 
converted  into  chyme,  unless  there  is  too 
much  of  it,  or  the  person  is  weak  or  feeble,  or 
the  food  is  improper  in  its  quality. 

FORMATION  OF  CHYME. — The  food  in  the 
duodenum  becomes  a  still  more  perfect  chyme, 
and  is  gradually  mixed  with  a  bitter  liquor, 
called  bile,  coming  through  a  small  pipe  from 
the  liver,  and  also  with  a  liquor  resembling 
saliva,  coming  from  the  pancreas,  or,  as  it  is 
called,  sweet  bread. 

The  liver,  which  I  have  barely  mentioned 
in  another  chapter,  is  a  large  organ — a  gland 
— which  fills  up  a  considerable  portion  of  the 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  209 

abdomen,  -principally  on  its  upper  and  right 
side.  The  pancreas  is  another  gland,  not  so 
large,  lying  a  little  way  from  it,  but  nearer 
the  spine. 

The  food,  being  mixed  with  these  liquors, 
slowly  passes  along,  and  spreads  itself  ovei 
nearly  the  whole  internal  surface  of  the  intes- 
tines. It  is  always  in  greatest  abundance, 
however,  in  the  duodenum,  and  a  few  feet  of 
the  intestines  next  to  it. 

LACTEALS. — There  is  in  the  human  body 
a  set  of  little  vessels  called  lacteals,  which 
begin  in  great  numbers,  as  if  by  roots,  in  the 
sides  of  the  intestines,  and  gradually  uniting 
as  they  proceed,  they  all  at  length  come 
together  into  one  principal  trunk  or  main  pipe, 
which,  with  its  branches,  might  be  compared 
to  the  trunk  or  stern  of  a  tree.  These  vessels 
— or  their  roots — seem  to  begin  on  the  inside 
of  the  duodenum  and  other  intestines,  with 
open  or  funnel-shaped  mouths,  with  which 
they  suck  up  the  finer  or  better  parts  of  the 
chyme  within  them,  and  which,  during  the 
operation  of  being  taken  up,  is  changed  into  a 
pearly  colored  or  milky  fluid,  called  chyle. 

IS* 


210  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

This  process  is  commonly  called  absorption  ; 
and  the  vessels  by  which  it  is  performed,  lac- 
teals ;  though  they  are  sometimes  called  by 
the  general  term  absorbents. 

The  chyle,  after  being  taken  up,  is  conveyed 
along  in  the  small  vessels  it  begins  with,  till 
they  unite  with  others,  like  small  streams  with 
larger  ones.  These  again  unite  with  those 
which  are  still  larger,  until  they  at  last  meet 
in  a  grand  trunk  or  receptacle,  near  the  fifth 
vertebra  of  the  loins.  This  main  duct  is 
called  the  thoracic  duct.  Important  as  this 
part  is,  in  the  human  machinery,  it  is  not 
larger  than  a  common  quill. 

From  this  receptacle  or  reservoir,  one  or 
more  pipes  or  ducts  go  out  to  carry  the  chyle 
which  it  contains  up  towards  the  top  of  the 
left  shoulder.  Here  is  a  great  vein,  which 
brings  back  the  blood  from  the  left  arm,  and 
pours  it  into  the  heart ;  and  into  this  vein  the 
chyle  is  poured,  and  mixed  with  the  blood, 
with  which  it  immediately  descends  into  the 
heart,  and  passes  directly  to  the  lungs,  to 
undergo  a  very  important  process,  to  be  de- 
scribed by  and  bye. 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  211 

ABSORBENTS. — There  is  another  set  of  ves- 
sels, found  in  almost  all  parts  of  the  human 
body,  which  unite,  by  their  tributary  streams, 
to  form  this  mass  of  liquid  which  is  thus 
poured  into  the  veins.  They  are  in  greatest 
numbers  at  the  inner  parts  of  the  thighs  and 
arms,  at  the  neck,  and  in  the  groins  ;  though 
they  are  very  numerous,  as  I  have  already 
said,  in  almost  all  the  soft  parts  of  the  body — 
the  brain  perhaps  excepted.  They  are  so 
small  as  to  be  seldom  seen,  except  with  a 
microscope. 

These  vessels  are  called  absorbents.  They 
absorb  or  suck  up  any  particles  not  wanted  in 
one  place,  and  carry  them  back  into  the  blood, 
to  be  sent  round  again,  to  be  used  where  they 
are  really  wanted,  or  else  to  be  expelled 
from  the  body.  The  liquid  which  is  found  in 
these  vessels  is  called  lymph.  It  is  of  a  pale 
red  color,  but  wholly  different  from  blood. 
Besides  having  the  general  name  of  absorbents, 
these  vessels  are  sometimes  called  lymphatics. 

I  have  said  that  the  chyle  is  pearl  colored ; 
but  that  depends,  in  some  degree,  on  the  kind 
of  material  from  which  it  is  prepared.  If  that 
consists  partly  or  wholly  of  flesh,  the  chyle  is 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

more  or  less  milky  in  its  appearance  ;  but  if 
the  food  is  wholly  vegetable,  the  chyle  is  of  a 
fine  pearl  color. 

The  chyle,  in  its  pure  state,  is  similar  to 
the  blood,  except  in  color.  The  little  glo- 
bules, (small  round  bodies,)  which  swim  in 
the  blood,  and  give  color  to  it,  are  numerous 
in  the  chyle  ;  but  instead  of  being  red,  as  in 
the  blood,  they  are  white.  I  have  said  that 
the  chyle,  in  its  nature,  is  like  the  blood  ;  but 
of  the  nature  of  the  latter  1  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  say  more,  presently. 

Whether  the  chyle  is  changed  to  a  red 
color  as  soon  as  it  is  mixed  with  the  blood,  or 
whether  the  change  does  not  take  place  till  it 
has  passed  with  it  through  the  lungs,  we  can 
better  judge,  perhaps,  when  we  come  to  speak 
of  the  blood,  and  the  changes  it  undergoes  in 
those  organs. 

Having  thus  traced  the  food,  or  raw  mate- 
rial, through  the  whole  of  a  most  wonderful 
manufacturing  process — that  of  digestion — till 
chyle,  and  perhaps  blood  is  formed  from  it,  it 
may  be  well  to  pause  and  consider,  for  a  few 
moments,  the  different  materials  from  which 
this  most  important  fluid  is  prepared. 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  213 

MATERIALS  FOR  BLOOD. — The  great  Crea- 
tor has  so  formed  this  wonderful  apparatus,  that 
it  has  the  power  of  forming  chyle  from  almost 
all  substances,  either  in  the  animal  or  vege- 
table kingdom.  Some  make  more,  others 
less  ;  some  make  it  of  excellent  quality,  others 
of  a  quality  very  inferior.  From  some  it  is 
formed  very  rapidly  ;  from  others,  very  slowly. 
Some  things,  in  the  process  of  digestion,  give 
out  a  great  deal  of  heat ;  others,  very  little. 
Lastly,  some  substances  produce  great  excite- 
ment and  disturbance  of  the  stomach  and  other 
organs,  while  others  produce  hardly  any  dis- 
turbance at  all. 

As  a  general  rule,  those  things  which  pro- 
duce the  least  disturbance  of  the  digestive 
organs,  and  of  the  other  organs  of  the  body, 
as  well  as  the  least  heat,  make  the  best  chyle 
and  the  best  blood  ;  and  are,  of  course,  the 
best  adapted  to  our  use.  It  must  be  observed, 
however,  that  much  depends  upon  habit ;  and 
that  a  substance  which  is  naturally  rather  infe- 
rior to  another  may,  by  habit,  be  rendered  for 
a  time  somewhat  more  useful. 

Among  the  best  things  to  submit  to  the 
process  of  digestion  are,  bread  made  of  wheat 


214  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

flour  unbolted,  from  one  to  three  or  four  days 
old  ;  bread  made  of  corn  meal  and  rye  meal, 
either  separate  or  mixed  ;  plain  puddings  made 
of  rice,  sago,  tapioca,  &c.;  potatoes  and  other 
garden  vegetables,  apples,  pears,  peas,  beans, 
&c.  For  infants  who  have  no  teeth,  milk,  as 
is  well  known,  forms  the  best  chyle  and  blood. 
For  adults,  a  tolerable  sort  of  chyle  may  be 
formed  of  plain,  lean  meats,  fish,  milk  and 
eggs ;  and  an  inferior  sort  of  butter,  cheese, 
cakes,  pies,  hot  bread,  beets,  turnips,  onions, 

All  these  substances  may  be  better  or  worse, 
according  as  they  are  more  or  less  broken  and 
ground  down  with  the  teeth,  and  mixed  with 
the  saliva ;  and  also  according  to  their  quantity. 
The  best  of  them,  if  not  well  masticated, 
make  but  an  inferior  sort  of  blood ;  and  the 
worse,  if  well  masticated,  make  chyle  and 
blood  which  answer,  in  some  good  degree,  the 
purposes  of  health.  So  of  quantity  :  those 
which  are  even  excellent  in  their  nature,  are 
not  so  good,  if  taken  in  excessive  quantity. 

Spirit  makes  no  chyle  or  blood  at  all ;  wine, 
cider,  ale,  beer,  coffee  and  tea,  very  little, 
unless  milk,  sugar,  molasses,  or  something  of 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  215 

the  kind  is  mixed  with  them.  Besides  this, 
they  contain,  more  or  less,  qualities  which  not 
only  do  no  good,  but  are  positively  hurtful. 
Even  water  can  hardly  be  said  to  make  either 
chyle  or  blood  ;  but  then  it  quenches  our 
thirst,  and  answers  many  important  and  even 
indispensable  purposes. 

I  am  now  to  tell  you  about  the  blood  ;— 
first,  what  it  is  ;  secondly,  its  uses  ;  thirdly, 
how  it  is  kept  in  a  good  and  healthy  condition. 

NATURE  OF  THE  BLOOD. — If  we  open  a 
vein  with  a  lancet — as  you  know  physicians 
and  surgeons  sometimes  do — and  draw  out  a 
quantity  of  blood  into  a  bowl,  or  any  other 
vessel,  and  let  it  stand  in  the  open  air,  it  soon 
begins  to  clot  or  thicken,  or,  as  it  is  usually 
called,  coagulate. 

From  the  surface  of  this  coagulated  part  a 
yellowish  watery  fluid  oozes  out,  in  numerous 
small  drops,  which  gradually  increase  and  unite, 
till,  in  a  short  time,  there  is  more  of  this  thin 
liquid  than  there  is  of  the  thicker  coagulated 
part.  This  watery  part  is  called  the  scrum. 

If  we  take  the  coagulated  part  of  the  blood, 
and  wash  it  thoroughly,  though  carefully,  we 


216  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

may  divest  it  of  nearly  all  its  coloring  matter, 
and  leave  it  white.  This  white  substance 
is  called  fibrine,  and  strongly  resembles  the 
fibrous  or  thread-like  substance  of  which  I 
have  already  told  you  the  muscles  are  formed. 

The  coloring  matter,  which  we  wash  out, 
consists  of  small,  round  or  globular  particles, 
which,  before  the  blood  coagulates,  float  in  it ; 
but,  during  the  process  of  coagulation,  become 
entangled  in  the  fibrine.  You  have  also  been 
informed,  in  another  place,  that  these  globules 
exist  and  float  in  the  same  way  in  the  chyle, 
before  it  mixes  with  the  blood.  In  the  chyle, 
however,  they  are  colorless. 

What  gives  the  color  to  these  globules  in 
the  blood  is  unknown.  Some  suppose  it  is 
the  iron,  or  rather  phosphate  of  iron.  Phos- 
phate of  iron,  it  is  well  known,  exists  in  the 
blood,  in  small  quantity.  Dr.  Good  thinks 
there  is  about  three  ounces  in  an  adult ;  and 
that  there  is,  of  course,  about  enough  in  forty 
men,  to  make  a  ploughshare.  Sulphur  is  also 
found  by  chemists  in  the  blood ;  but  they  do 
not  tell  us  in  what  proportion. 

Thus  we  see  that  the  three  principal  ingre- 
dients of  the  blood  are  the  coloring  matter,  the 


y 
FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  217 

fibrine,  and  the  serum.  The  serum  is  princi- 
pally albumen  and  water ;  though  it  also  con- 
tains, in  small  proportion,  besides  sulphur  and 
iron,  a  great  variety  of  substances,  especially 
alkaline  salts.  Albumen  is  a  substance  which 
you  may  consider  as  resembling  the  white  of  an 
egg  ;  for  the  latter  is  almost  wholly  composed 
of  it. 

USES  OF  THE  BLOOD. — All  parts  of  the 
human  body,  whether  solid  or  fluid,  and  what- 
ever may  be  their  appearance  or  structure,  are 
formed  from  the  blood.  I  have  told  you  how 
this  fluid  is  sent  out  by  the  heart  to  all  parts 
of  the  system,  even  to  the  bones.  I  have 
also  said  a  few  words  about  the  saliva,  and  the 
gastric  juice,  and  the  bile  ;  and  have  called 
them  secretions. 

It  may  be  necessaiy  to  observe,  in  this 
place,  that  by  the  word  secretion,  as  used  in 
this  book,  is  meant  something  formed  from 
the  blood.  Not  only  the  saliva,  the  tears,  the 
gastric  juice,  the  pancreatic  fluid  and  the  bile, 
are  secretions,  but  the  mucus  which  is  every- 
where found  in  the  mucous  membranes  of  the 
body,  the  water  in  the  brain,  the  lungs,  &,c. 
19 


218 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


In  short,  wherever  you  find  water  or  anything 
else,  inside  of  the  body,  except  in  the  intes- 
tines or  the  bladder,  you  may  be  pretty  sure 
it  is  formed  from  the  blood.  Most  of  the 
fluids  thus  formed  in  the  body  are  termed 
secretions. 

You  will  perhaps  ask  how  secretion  is  ef- 
fected. Sometimes  it  is  by  means  of  glands, 
larger  or  smaller ;  sometimes  without  them. 
A  gland  is  a  soft  body,  full  of  vessels — veins, 
arteries  and  absorbents.  These  vessels  seem 
so  numerous  that  one  might  be  led  to  think 
the  gland  was  wholly  made  up  of  them.  Here 
is  a  picture  of  the  vessels  of  the  kidneys,  as 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  219 

they  would  appear  if  a  slice  of  this  organ 
\vere  carefully  viewed,  after  the  blood  had 
been  wiped  away. 

The  kidney,  however,  is  not  so  good  a 
specimen  of  the  nature  of  a  gland  as  the  liver 
would  be.  The  larger  glands  of  the  human 
body  are  the  liver,  the  spleen,  the  pancreas, 
the  salivary  glands,  the  lachrymal  glands,  &c. 
Besides  these,  there  are  smaller  glands  almost 
innumerable.  The  cerumen  or  wax  of  the 
ear,  and  the  oil  of  the  skin,  of  which  I  have 
already  spoken,  are  secreted  by  little  glands. 

The  lymphatic  or  absorbent  vessels  are 
everywhere  connected,  in  their  passage  through 
the  body,  with  little  glands.  Some  of  these 
are  larger,  some  smaller ;  and  most  of  them 
are  very  small  indeed.  Those  little  swellings 
called  kernels,  which  sometimes  appear  in  the 
armpit  or  groin,  or  in  the  sides  of  the  neck, 
are  nothing  but  inflamed  lymphatic  glands. 

All  these  glands,  (except  the  lymphatic 
glands,  whose  use  is  unknown,)  secrete  some- 
thing ;  and  the  material  for  secreting  anything 
from,  is  the  blood  sent  to  them  from  the  heart, 
into  their  ten  thousand  little  vessels. 


220  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

NATURE  OF  SECRETION. — I  have  already 
observed  that  some  of  the  liquids,  &LC.  of  the 
human  body  seem  to  be  secreted  without  the 
help  of  glands.  They  appear  to  be  made 
directly  from  the  blood-vessels.  How,  we  do 
not  know.  It  has  sometimes  been  thought  that 
they  ooze  through  the  sides  of  the  vessels. 

Here,  perhaps,  in  one  vessel,  is  blood ; 
there,  outside  of  it,  but  hardly  a  hair's  breadth 
from  it,  is  gastric  juice,  or  some  other  entirely 
new  substance.  Here  is  simple  chyme  or 
chyle ;  there,  at  the  distance  of  a  hair's 
breadth,  is  chyle  or  blood.  Here  is  chyme  or 
chyle  made  of  common  food,  with  no  sulphur, 
or  iron,  or  nitrogen  in  it ;  there,  perhaps  not 
the  twelfth  part  of  an  inch  distant,  is  a  fluid 
made  from  this  very  liquid,  containing  sulphur, 
nitrogen  and  iron  ! 

By  what  secret  laws  of  the  Creator  have 
these  little  vessels  this  wonderful  power?  By 
what  mysterious  process  can  they  change- — 
almost  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye — a  bland, 
milky  substance,  made  from  simple  bread,  or 
milk,  or  potatoes,  into  iron  or  sulphur  ?  But 
so  it  is.  Well,  indeed,  might  David  the 
Psalmist  express  wonder, 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  221 

Not  only  the  liquid  parts,  but  the  solid 
parts  too,  are  made  from  the  blood.  The 
very  bones  themselves,  at  first  gelatine,  are 
gradually  made  into  bone,  by  means  of  the 
blood  in  its  little  vessels.  First,  a  particle  of 
gelatine  is  taken  away,  by  the  absorbents  ; 
then  comes  along  a  particle  of  blood,  or  some- 
thing that  the  blood  contains,  and  stops  in  its 
place  ;  and  so  on. 

These  particles,  which  are  thus  taken  out 
to  form  bone  in  the  place  of  gelatine,  are 
many  of  them  lime,  or  phosphate  of  lime,  or 
at  least  something  which  makes  lime,  before 
it  can  become  bone.  Who  directs  the  little 
particles  of  lime  to  the  places  where  they  are 
wanted  ?  Who  tells  them  to  stop  at  the 
bones,  and  not  before  ? 

The  power  of  the  system  to  take  out  from 
the  blood  what  is  wanted  for  its  growth  and 
support,  is  aptly  shown  by  Dr.  Edwards.* 
He  had  been  speaking  of  the  wonderful  distri- 
bution of  the  blood,  in  the  little  arteries,  to 
every  part  of  the  body,  when  he  thus  added : 

*  See  the  Eighth  Report  of  the  American  Tempe- 
rance Society,  page  11. 


222  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

"  Along  on  the  lines  of  these  little  tubes  or 
canals,  (the  arteries,)  through  which  the  blood, 
with  all  its  treasures,  flows,  God  has  provided 
a  vast  multitude  of  little  organs  or  waiters, 
whose  office  is,  each  one  to  take  out  of  the 
blood,  as  it  comes  along,  that  kind  and  quantity 
of  nourishment  which  it  needs  for  its  own 
support,  and  also  for  the  support  of  that  part 
of  the  body  which  is  committed  to  its  care. 
And  although  exceedingly  minute  and  delicate, 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  the 
wonderful  power  of  doing  this,  and  also  of 
abstaining  from,  or  of  expelling  and  throwing 
back  into  the  common  mass,  what  is  unsuitable, 
or  what  they  do  not  want,  to  be  carried  to 
some  other  place,  where  it  may  be  needed  ; 
or  if  it  is  not  needed  anywhere,  and  is  good 
for  nothing,  to  be  thrown  out  of  the  body  as  a 
nuisance. 

"  For  instance,  the  organs  placed  at  the 
ends  of  the  fingers,  when  the  blood  comes 
there,  take  out  of  it  what  they  need  for  their 
support,  and  also  what  is  needed  to  make  fin- 
ger nails  ;  while  they  will  cautiously  abstain 
from  and  repel  that  which  will  only  make 
hair,  and  let  it  go  on  to  the  head.  And  the 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS   USES.  223 

organs  on  the  head  carefully  take  out  that 
which  they  need  for  their  support,  and  also 
that  which  will  make  hair,  or,  in  common 
language,  cause  it  to  grow ;  while  they  will 
cautiously  abstain  from  taking  that  which  is 
good  for  nothing  except  to  make  eyeballs,  and 
let  it  go  to  the  eyes ;  and  will  even  help  it  on. 
And  the  organs  about  the  eyes  will  take  that, 
and  work  it  tip  into  eyes,  or  cause  them  to 
grow.  And  so  throughout  the  whole." 

By  this  we  may  plainly  see  that  there  must 
be  a  constant  waste  in  every  part  of  the  sys- 
tem. It  is  impossible  but  that  the  friction — 
the  "wear  and  tear"  of  hundreds  of  muscles 
and  tendons,  and  thousands  of  rapid  streams — 
should  gradually  produce  an  effect,  let  the 
parts  be  ever  so  hard.  A  continual  dropping 
will  wear  away  a  rock. 

Now  the  blood  not  only  carries  out  little 
atoms  or  particles  to  make  all  parts  of  the 
body  grow,  and  to  replace  the  atoms  that  are 
worn  off  by  friction  in  our  motions,  but  it  also 
takes  away  the  worn  out  and  good  for  nothing 
particles,  and  carries  them  out  of  the  body. 
It  is  true  they  are  taken  up  by  the  absorbents 


224  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

in  the  first  place ;  but  then  the  absorbents 
cany  them  to  the  blood,  and  empty  them  into 
it,  which  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  In  this 
way,  as  you  may  easily  see,  the  blood  is  liable 
to  lose  its  purity  and  excellence,  since  it  is 
constantly  giving  out  good  particles,  and  re- 
ceiving bad  ones.* 

MOTION  OF  THE  HEART. — The  heart  is 
kept  in  motion — we  know  not  how ;  nor  can 
the  wisest  anatomist  or  physiologist  in  the 
world  tell  us.  We  know  that  the  lungs  have 
something  to  do  in  the  case  ;  and  when  once 
set  a-going,  we  can  form  some  idea  of  what 
keeps  it  in  motion  ;  but  after  all,  the  real  causes 
of  the  continued  motion  of  either  the  heart  or 
the  lungs  is  a  great  mystery ;  and  may  possi- 
bly always  remain  so. 

*  The  manner  in  which  the  bad  or  waste  particles 
are  removed  from  the  system  is  very  curious.  The 
kidneys  seem  to  be  a  sort  of  sieve  or  filter ;  with  this 
difference,  however,  that  while  a  sieve  permits  only 
the  finest  and  best  parts  to  pass  through  it,  the  kidneys 
filter  out  the  worse  or  coarser  parts.  These  are  carried 
in  two  pipes  called  ureters,  to  the  bladder,  whence  they 
are  conveyed  immediately  out  of  the  system. 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  225 

I  might  mention  also  in  this  place,  that  there 
is  a  strong  partition  between  the  right  and  left 
sides  of  the  heart,  so  that  the  right  auricle  and 
right  ventricle,  with  their  blood  brought  back 
from  the  veins,  can  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  blood  in  the  left  auricle  and  left  ventricle. 
It  is  indeed  as  if  there  were  two  hearts  placed 
side  by  side,  and  closely  pressed  together  ; — 
and  in  some  of  the  lower  animals,  I  believe 
there  are  really  two. 

You  are  probably  aware  that  you  can  feel 
the  motion  of  the  heart,  if  you  will  only  lay 
your  hand  on  your  left  side,  near  the  lower 
ribs.  This  important  organ — not  larger  than 
a  man's  fist,  and  strong  and  muscular — is  situ- 
ated slanting,  or  obliquely,  as  you  see  in  the 
following  engraving.  It  is  represented  nearly 
in  the  position  in  which  my  heart  would  ap- 
pear, if  you  could  stand  before  me  this  moment, 
and  see  it  just  as  it  now  is,  in  full  motion.  I 
mean,  its  position  is  just  what  it  would  then 
be.  In  other  respects,  it  would  appear  differ- 
ently, especially  in  its  connections  ;  for  the 
vessels  which  go  to  it  and  come  from  it  are 
here  represented  as  cut  off. 


226 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 


In  this  engraving,  o  and  q  show  the  stumps 
of  the  two  great  veins,  which  bring  back  the 
blood  that  has  been  distributed  to  all  parts  of 
the  body  by  means  of  the  arteries.  They  are 
called  the  vence  cavcz.  There  are,  however, 
one  or  two  other  large  veins  which  bring  back 
blood.  These  you  see  at  p.  The  right  auri- 
cle is  at  n ;  b  is  the  right  ventricle  ;  fr  repre- 
sents the  pulmonary  artery,  through  which  the 
blood  is  sent  to  be  changed  in  the  lungs — of 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  227 

which  1 1  are  the  right  and  left  branches  ;  m  m 
show  the  great  veins — pulmonary  veins — that 
bring  back  the  blood  from  the  lungs  into  the 
left  auricle ;  a,  the  left  ventricle ;  c  e  f,  the 
great  aorta,  through  which  blood  is  sent  out  to 
all  parts  of  the  body  :  and  g  h  i,  the  branches 
of  this  artery  which  carry  blood  to  the  head, 
neck  and  arms.  The  little  arrows  point  al- 
ways in  the  direction  in  which  the  blood  runs. 
The  letter  s  points  out  the  coronary  arteries, 
which  carry  blood  to  the  heart  itself. 

But  I  must  explain  to  you,  more  fully,  the 
motion  of  the  heart.  The  blood  which  re- 
turns from  the,  lungs,  through  m  m,  and  that 
which  returns  from  all  the  rest  of  the  body, 
through  o  p  q,  enters  both  the  right  and  left 
auricles  at  the  same  instant,  and  also  in  the 
same  instant  flows  through  these  "auricles  into 
the  two  ventricles. 

Thus  both  sides  of  the  heart  fill  in  the 
same  instant.  Now  let  us  suppose  them 
filled.  What  is  next  to  be  done  ?  The  heart 
contracts — shrinks — and  compresses  the  blood 
with  as  much  force  as  a  strong  man  could 
compress  it  with  his  hand.  But  suppose  you 
held  in  your  hand  a  fleshy  sack  of  blood  that 


228  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

contained  two  or  three  ounces,  with  little  hol- 
low branches,  that  parted  into  ten  thousand 
more  into  which  the  blood  could  flow,  but 
could  not  get  out  at  their  sides  or  extremities. 
Suppose  them  now  all  full,  and  the  sack  full, 
too.  If  you  press  the  sack  hard  with  your 
hand,  what  will  happen  ?  Why,  the  blood, 
you  will  tell  me,  will  go  out  of  it  into  the 
branches.  It  will ;  but  it  will  be  as  likely  to 
go  into  one  as  another,  provided  it  is  equally 
large. 

But  there  is  another  difficulty.  As  soon  as 
I  cease  to  press  the  sack,  and  the  blood  has 
an  opportunity  to  do  so,  it  will  run  back  into 
it  again.  So  you  may,  perhaps,  at  first  view, 
suppose  the  heart  would  do.  As  soon  as  it 
should  cease  to  contract,  and  begin  to  relax, 
so  that  its  cavities  or  chambers  would  hold 
just  as  much  as  they  did  before,  the  blood 
would  run  back  into  it.  Why  should  it  not  ? 
No  motion  like  that  in  our  bodies  would  ever, 
in  this  way,  be  produced. 

I  have  told  you  what  one  might  naturally 
think,  who  knew  nothing  about  the  circulation. 
But  let  us  see  for  a  moment  what  the  facts 
are. 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  229 

When  the  two  auricles,  one  on  each  side 
of  the  heart,  are  full  of  blood,  they  contract 
at  the  same  time,  and  press  the  blood  into  the 
two  ventricles.  If  you  ask  why  this  blood  is 
not  just  as  likely  to  go  back  into  the  veins 
again,  when  the  auricles  contract,  as  to  go  into 
the  ventricles,  I  will  give  you  two  reasons. 
First,  the  veins  are  already  full,  and  the  mass 
of  blood  in  them  is  flowing  onward  and  press- 
ing towards  the  auricles ;  and  to  force  the 
blood  back  into  them  would  be  somewhat  like 
pushing  it  up  hill.  But  secondly,  there  are 
little  clappers,  or  valves,  as  they  are  called,  in 
the  sides  of  the  veins,  which,  like  so  many 
small  swinging  doors,  hang  down  against  the 
sides  of  the  veins,  so  long  as  the  blood  in  them 
is  running  towards  the  auricles.  But  as  soon 
as  the  auricles  contract,  and  the  blood  attempts 
to  get  back  by  the  way  it  came,  the  valves 
spread  out  and  form  a  kind  of  floor  or  partition, 
which  obstructs  it. 

Now  the  ventricles  both  contract ;  and  as 
was  the  case  with  the  two  auricles,  they  both 
contract  in  the  same  instant.  This  contraction 
pushes  their  blood  into  the  arteries,  as  I  have 
before  told  you.  The  right  ventricle  pushes 
20 


230  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

its  blood  into  the  pulmonary  artery,  whence  it 
goes  into  the  lungs  ;  and  the  left  ventricle 
pushes  its  blood  into  the  great  aorta,  through 
which  it  goes  to  every  part  of  the  body. 

Why  does  not  the  blood,  when  the  ventricle 
contracts,  go  back  into  the  auricle  ?  Because 
there  are  valves  between  them,  which  immedi- 
ately spread  out,  like  so  many  flaps  or  clappers, 
and  form  a  sort  of  partition  or  floor,  as  the 
valves  do  in  the  veins,  and  prevent  it.  They 
do  not,  it  is  true,  prevent  every  drop  of  it 
from  returning.  A  very  small  quantity  gets 
back,  but  none  worth  mentioning. 

We  have  seen  how  the  blood  gets  out  of 
the  auricles  into  the  ventricles,  and  why  it 
goes  into  the  ventricles,  rather  than  back  into 
the  veins.  I  will  now  say  a  little  more  about 
the  structure  of  the  veins. 

The  valves,  of  which  I  have  spoken,  are 
found  in  the  larger  veins  all  over  the  body  ; 
and  now  comes  the  reason  why  the  blood  can 
run  up  hill.  The  pressure  in  the  veins  is  all 
the  while  diminishing,  as  you  may  easily  see, 
on  the  side  towards  the  heart,  even  though  it 
is  the  up  hill  side ;  and  as  the  arteries,  at  their 
extremities,  are  all  the  while  pouring  their 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  231 

blood  into  them,  the  pressure  must  be  as  con- 
stantly and  certainly  increasing  on  the  other 
side.  Besides  this  general  pressure,  there  is 
also  local  pressure.  The  veins  lie,  most  of 
them,  in  the  skin,  or  among  the  muscles,  or 
among  parts  that  are  performing  some  sort  of 
motion.  This  motion  must  push  the  blood  in 
one  direction  or  another.  But  as  the  valves 
prevent  its  going  back,  the  pressure  is  hard 
enough  to  make  it  go  slowly  up  hill  ;  and  thus 
it  moves  onward  and  onward,  till  it  finds  its 
way  to  the  heart. 

It  is  the  contraction  of  the  ventricles,  which 
I  have  described,  that  causes  the  motion  of 
the  heart,  and  which  is  felt  so  plainly  on  the 
outside  of  our  bodies.  It  takes  place  in  an 
adult  male,  in  good  health,  about  once  a  sec- 
ond ;  in  females,  it  is  rather  more  frequent. 
It  is  most  frequent,  both  in  males  and  females, 
at  birth ;  and  diminishes  in  frequency  till  we 
come  to  middle  age. 

PULSATION. — This  beating  of  the  heart,  as 
the  blood  is  pushed  from  it  into  the  arteries, 
seems  to  be  felt  in  the  large  arteries  all  over 
the  body.  I  say  seems  to  be  ;  but  the  subject 


THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

is  not  well  understood.  We  only  know  that 
if  we  lay  our  finger  on  an  artery  at  the  wrist, 
or  in  the  ankle,  or  any  other  extreme  part  of 
the  body — feel  the  pulse,  as  it  is  called — this 
beating  in  the  extremities  corresponds  exactly 
with  the  beating  of  the  heart. 

Physicians  can  tell  something  about  disease 
in  a  person,  by  the  state  of  his  pulse.  This 
may  be  hard,  soft,  swift,  slow,  strong,  weak, 
regular,  irregular,  fcc.  They  feel  at  the  wrist, 
because  there  is  an  artery  at  the  wrist  which 
comes  very  near  to  the  surface,  whereas  most 
of  the  arteries  lie  very  deep  in  the  body  or 
limbs.  A  few  others,  however,  may  be  felt ; 
and  the  Chinese  physicians  feel  the  pulse  in 
many  parts  of  the  body,  thinking — as  they  do 
not  understand  anatomy  and  physiology — that 
it  may  be  swifter  in  one  place,  and  slower  in 
another. 

FORCE  OF  THE  HEART. — The  force  with 
which  the  ventricles  press  the  blood  to  push  it 
out  of  the  heart  has  been  variously  estimated. 
Some  reckon  it  at  only  a  few  ounces  ;  others, 
much  more  ;  and  some,  180,000  pounds.  The 
truth  is,  that  it  presses  very  hard — with  a 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  233 

force  apparently  equal,  if  not  superior  to  that 
of  the  gripe  of  a  strong  man  with  his  fist. 
But  it  does  not  press  with  a  force  equal  to 
thousands  of  pounds,  nor  even  hundreds.  I 
suspect  it  may  average,  in  an  adult,  from  20 
to  30  pounds. 

One  reason  why  anatomists  have  made  such 
strange  calculations  is,  that  they  could  not 
conceive  how  the  blood  could  otherwise  be 
carried  so  swiftly  to  all  parts  of  the  system. 
The  distance  it  has  to  go,  in  some  instances,  is 
great,  for  the  arteries  are  very  crooked.  But 
they  seemed  to  forget  that,  by  the  curious 
structure  we  have  mentioned,  the  veins  were 
all  the  while  getting  empty,  and  a  sort  of 
vacuum*  forming  in  their  cavities,  into  which 
the  blood  would  naturally  rush  from  the  arte- 
ries, so  that  the  pressure,  or  rather  the  resist- 
ance of  the  latter  to  the  contents  of  the  heart 
would  be  constantly  diminishing,  and  thus  there 
would  be  a  tendency  to  a  regular  current  of 
the  blood. 

*  It  is  said — and  with  some  truth — that  nature  abhors 
a  vacuum. 

20* 


234  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

CAPILLARIES. — They  appear  also  to  forget 
the  structure  and  nature  of  the  little  arteries — 
sometimes  called  capillaries-— found  in  such 
numbers  in'  the  skin,  the  muscles,  and  indeed 
everywhere  in  the  body.  The  truth  is,  that 
the  coats  of  these  little  vessels  are  muscular ; 
and  it  is  a  pretty  well  established  fact,  that 
they  have  the  power  of  drawing  the  blood 
from  the  heart.  Dr.  Smith,  late  an  eminent 
professor  of  surgery  in  Yale  College,  thought 
ihat  these  capillary  vessels  did  almost  all  the 
work — the  heart  doing  very  little. 

Others  too  have  thought  the  same.  They 
have  considered  them  as  little  pumps,  all  over 
the  body,  that  were  continually  pumping  up 
the  blood  from  the  deep  well  of  the  heart  to 
the  extremities  of  the  remotest  chambers  of 
the  system.  You  may  form  some  idea  of 
their  meaning,  by  thinking  of  the  Astor  House 
in  New  York,  and  other  public  houses  built 
on  the  same  plan,  where  water  is  carried  by 
means  of  pumps  and  other  machinery  to  every 
room  in  the  house — even  to  the  highest  story 
and  the  remotest  chambers. 

The  truth  here — as  almost  always  happens 
— falls  between  the  extremes.  The  heart  re- 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS   USES.  235 

ally  pushes  the  blood  with  considerable  force  ; 
and  the  muscular  capillaries,  at  the  same  time, 
act  in  a  slight  degree  like  little  pumps.  Then 
the  vacuum  I  have  spoken  of  has  some  influ- 
ence ;  and  there  may  be  other  causes  in  ope- 
ration, which  I  have  not  mentioned.  The 
whole  process  of  circulation  is  wonderful,  and 
it  requires  a  large  volume  to  illustrate  and 
explain  it  fully. 

REVIEW  OF  THE  CIRCULATION. — I  will 
here  insert  a  very  good  account  of  the  circula- 
tion, abridged  from  one  of  the  English  maga- 
zines. Some  things  will  be  found  in  it  which 
have  been  already  mentioned  ;  but  I  think  it 
will  still  be  very  interesting  and  highly  useful. 

"  The  heart  is  placed  within  the  breast,  be- 
tween the  two  lobes  of  the  lungs.  It  is  a  fleshy 
substance,  and  has  two  cavities,  which  are 
separated  from  each  other  by  a  valve.  From 
the  left  ventricle,  a  large  blood-vessel  called 
the  aorta  proceeds,  and  soon  divides  into 
several  branches,  which,  ascending  and  de- 
scending by  innumerable  divisions,  become 
smaller  as  they  proceed,  and  penetrate  every 
part  of  the  body. 


236  THE    HOUSE    1    LIVE    IN. 

When  the  right  ventricle  contracts,  the 
blood  is  propelled  into  the  arteries  with  so 
much  force  that  it  reaches  the  smallest  ends 
of  their  most  remote  branches.  This  motion 
is  called  the  pulse,  which  is  merely  the  effect 
of  the  pulsation  of  the  heart,  and  is  quicker 
or  slower  according  to  the  frequency  of  its 
contractions. 

When  the  blood  reaches  the  extremities  of 
the  arteries.  Nature  employs  or  uses  it  in  the 
wisest  manner.  Certain  vessels,  of  a  particu- 
lar description,  absorb  its  watery,  oily  and 
saline  (saltish)  parts,  to  make  new  substances, 
as  milk,  fat,  bile,  &c.  What  is  not  used,  flows 
into  the  extremities  of  the  vessels  called  veins. 
These  vessels  gradually  enlarge  in  size,  till 
they  form  very  large  tubes,  which  convey  the 
blood  back  to  the  right  ventricle  of  the  heart. 
It  is  then  propelled  into  the  pulmonary  artery, 
which  disperses  it  through  the  lungs,  by  means 
of  innumerable  small  branches.  It  is  there 
exposed  to  the  action  of  the  air,  and  carried 
through  the  pulmonary  veins  to  the  left  auricle 
of  the  heart.  This  contracts,  and  sends  it 
to  the  left  ventricle,  which  also  contracting, 


FURNIT¥RE,    AND    ITS    USES.  23T 

pushes  it  into  the  aorta,  whence  it  circulates 
through  every  part  of  the  body. 

For  this  complicated  function,  four  cavities, 
as  we  have  seen,  become  necessary,  which  are 
accordingly  provided.  Two  of  these,  called 
ventricles,  send  out  the  blood,  (one  into  the 
lungs,  in  the  first  instance,  the  other  into  the 
mass,  after  it  has  returned  from  the  lungs.) 
Two  others,  called  auricles,  receive  the  blood 
from  the  veins — one,  as  it  comes  immediately 
from  the  body,  the  other,  as  the  same  blood 
returns  a  second  time,  after  its  circulation 
through  the  lungs  ;  for  without  the  lungs,  one 
of  each  would  have  been  sufficient. 

Such  is  the  admirable  circulation  of  the 
blood,  in  man  and  most  animals. — Yet  shall 
this  wonderful  machine  go  night  and  day,  for 
eighty  years  together,  at  the  rate  of  one  hun- 
dred thousand  strokes  every  twenty-four  hours, 
having  at  each  stroke  a  great  resistance  to 
overcome,  and  shall  continue  this  action,  for 
this  length  of  time,  without  disorder  and  with- 


CHAPTER   XVI. 


FURNITURE,  AND   ITS  USES— CONTINUED. 

Purifying  the  blood.  The  lungs.  Capacity  of  the 
lungs.  Breathing.  Uses  of  breathing.  Nature  of 
the  air.  Breathing  air  twice.  Ventilation.  Free 
motion  of  the  lungs.  Tight  lacing. 

WE  are  now  prepared  to  enter  upon  another 
subject — the  study  of  the  process  by  which 
the  purity  of  the  blood  is  promoted,  in  spite 
of  the  many  causes  which  are  continually  in 
operation  to  render  it  impure,  and  unfit  for  its 
purpose. 

PURIFYING  THE  BLOOD. — This  is  done  by 
means  of  atmospheric  air.  But  how  is  air  to 
be  introduced  into  the  human  body  ?  Can 
we  eat  it  ?  Can  we  drink  it  ?  Can  it  enter 
by  means  of  the  eyes,  or  the  ears,  or  the 
nose  ?  Not  exactly  in  either  of  these  ways. 
It  can  indeed  enter  into  the  nose  ;  but  without 
some  other  machinery,  it  would  go  no  farther 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  239 

than  the  throat,  before  it  must  return  or  pass 
out  at  the  mouth.  A  little,  it  is  true,  is  swal- 
lowed, both  with  our  food  and  drink ;  but  the 
quantity  is  not  very  considerable. 

There  is  air,  moreover,  in  almost  every  part 
of  the  body  :  if  there  were  not,  we  should 
soon  be  crushed.  The  atmosphere  in  which 
we  live  presses  on  us  with  a  tremendous  force, 
equal,  it  is  said,  in  a  middling  sized  man,  to 
about  32,000  pounds  to  the  whole  body,  or 
15  pounds  to  every  square  inch.  But  as  there 
is  air  within  us,  in  all  our  solids  and  fluids, 
which  presses  outward,  while  the  atmosphere 
presses  in  the  other  direction,,  we  do  not  per- 
ceive its  weight. 

When  I  said  the  blood  must  be  purified  by 
the  air,  I  meant  in  a  manner  much  more  rapid 
and  effectual  than  could  be  done  by  its  gradual 
introduction,  and  its  circulation  through  the 
vessels.  The  manner  of  this  change  I  will 
now  endeavor  to  describe. 

THE  LUNGS. — The  house  I  live  in  contains 
something  like  a  great  bellows,  by  whose  cu- 
rious operation  the  blood  is  cleansed  and  puri- 
fied. This  is  contained  in  the  upper  story, 


240  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

and  fills  nearly  the  whole  of  it,  leaving  only  a 
small  chamber  at  one  side  for  the  heart.  It 
blows  its  blasts  at  the  rate  of  twenty  or  twen- 
ty-five a  minute  in  an  adult — and  at  a  greater 
rate  still  in  children  ; — and  it  continues  these 
blasts,  whether  we  stand  or  sit,  sleep  or  wake, 
as  long  as  we  live.  I  refer,  as  you  will  readily 
know,  to  the  lungs. 

I  have  already  spoken  briefly  of  the  lungs. 
I  have  told  you  about  the  windpipe,  which 
leads  by  its  various  branches  to  the  ten  thou- 
sand little  cells  within  ;  and  I  have  told  you 
that  all  these  cells  were  lined  with  mucous 
membrane — a  membrane  constructed  like  the 
skin,  though  thinner.  But  I  believe  I  have 
not  yet  told  you  how  much  air  these  chambers 
of  the  human  body  will  hold,  nor  how  great 
are  the  superficial  contents  of  the  membrane 
on  which  the  blood  is  spread  to  be  purified. 

So  numerous  are  the  pipes  and  cells  in  the 
lungs,  that  it  is  commonly  thought  the  extent 
of  the  mucous  membrane  which  lines  them 
must  be  equal,  at  least,  to  the  extent  of  the 
skin,  which,  in  a  middling  sized  adult,  is  about 
fifteen  square  feet.  Over  all  this  surface  the 
fresh  air  which  we  breathe  may  circulate,  so 


FURNITURE,  AND    ITS    USES.  241 

long  as  we  are  in  health,  to  fulfil  its  office  in 
effecting  that  change  in  the  blood  of  which  I 
am  about,  to  speak. 

CAPACITY  OF  THE  LUNGS. — As  to  the 
quantity  of  air  which  the  lungs  will  hold,  it  is 
very  differently  estimated.  Many  anatomists 
think  it  about  200  cubic  inches,  or  three 
quarts,  in  the  adult  male ;  but  I  think  there 
must  be  a  mistake  in  their  calculations,  and 
that  it  cannot  exceed  two  quarts. 

When  we  breathe  out,  or  expire,  as  it  is 
called,  we  do  not  expel  all  the  air  actually  in 
our  lungs,  but  only  a  small  part  of  it.  Of 
course,  when  we  inspire,  we  merely  introduce 
air  enough  to  supply  the  place  of  what  was 
before  expelled.  The  process  of  inhaling  air 
is  called  inspiration,  and  that  of  expelling  it, 
expiration.  Both  these  taken  together,  that 
is,  the  whole  process  of  breathing,  is  called 
respiration.  The  amount  of  air  which  we 
draw  in  or  inspire  at  each  breath,  (I  speak  of 
an  adult  still,)  is  thought  to  be  about  forty 
cubic  inches,  or  something  more  than  a  pint ; 
but  this  estimate  has  also  been  thought  too 
high.  Females,  with  lungs  somewhat  smaller 
21 


242  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

than   males,  inspire  a  quantity  still   less  ;  and 
children,  a  quantity  smaller  still. 

BREATHING. — But  how  is  the  process  of 
breathing  performed  ?  To  understand  this,  it 
is  necessary  to  revert  once  more  to  the  struc- 
ture of  the  frame-work  of  the  human  system. 

The  ribs,  though  fastened  to  the  spine,  or 
back  bone,  are  not  so  firmly  fixed  but  that 
they  admit  of  considerable  motion.  This  mo- 
tion is  very  curious,  though  somewhat  difficult 
to  describe.  I  can  only  say  that  it  is  of  such 
a  nature,  if  unconfined  and  unrestrained,  as  to 
enlarge  the  cavity  of  the  chest  when  we  in- 
spire, or  draw  in  our  breath,  and  to  diminish  it 
when  we  expire,  or  breathe  it  out. 

This  motion  of  the  ribs  is  caused,  in  part, 
by  the  shortening  or  contracting  of  the  muscles 
about  the  chest.  Of  these,  there  are  two 
between  every  two  ribs  ;  and  as  there  are,  on 
each  side,  twelve  ribs,  making  twenty-four  in 
the  whole,  there  are  forty-four  of  these  muscles 
concerned  in  moving  the  "bellows,"  every 
time  I  breathe.  In  addition  to  these,  there 
are  nearly  one  hundred  others  more  or  less 
concerned  in  this  operation. 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  243 

In  a  healthy  adult,  from  twenty  to  twenty- 
five  of  these  inspirations  are  performed  in  a 
minute,  as  I  have  already  told  you.  When 
we  exercise  violently,  as  in  running,  leaping, 
swimming,  &c.,  the  motion  is  more  rapid. 
So  also  it  is  in  childhood  ;  and  sometimes  in 
fever  and  other  diseases.  When  the  lungs 
move  faster,  the  heart  beats  faster,  too,  in  the 
same  proportion — the  breathing  and  the  con- 
tractions of  the  heart  usually  bearing  an  exact 
proportion  to  each  other. 

Now  what  is  the  object  of  all  this  motion  ? 
For  what  purpose  is  a  pint  of  air  drawn  into 
the  lungs,  and  spread  over  fifteen  square  feet 
of  internal  surface,  every  three  seconds,  and 
another  pint  withdrawn  from  them  as  often  ? 
This  I  can,  in  part,  explain  to  you, 

USES  OF  BREATHING. — In  its  healthy,  natu- 
ral state,  before  it  is  sent  out  into  all  parts  of 
the  body,  the  blood  is  composed  of  carbon, 
oxygen,  nitrogen  and  hydrogen.  Of  one  hun- 
dred parts  of  blood,  fifty-three  are  carbon, 
twenty-four  oxygen,  sixteen  nitrogen,  and 
seven  hydrogen. 


244  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

But  when  it  has  been  circulated  all  over 
the  body,  and  has  returned  through  the  veins 
to  the  right  auricle  and  ventricle  of  the  heart, 
its  properties  become  greatly  changed.  It  is 
now  of  a  deep  purple  hue,  and  has  hence 
been  often  called  black  blood. 

In  this  state,  it  is  found  to  be  loaded  with 
too  great  a  proportion  of  carbon  ;  and  this, 
too,  notwithstanding  what  has  been  done  by 
the  skin  ;  for  it  is  a  most  striking  fact,  that 
this  very  work  of  purifying  the  blood,  of 
which  I  am  about  to  speak  as  taking  place 
in  the  lungs,  takes  place  in  a  small  degree  all 
over  the  surface  of  the  body.  Still  it  does  not 
complete  the  work,  and  the  blood  continues 
to  come  from  the  heart  through  the  pulmonary 
artery  to  the  lungs,  in  its  impure,  purple  or 
black  state ;  not  only  overloaded  with  carbon, 
but  mixed  with  such  other  noxious  ingredients 
as  render  it  unfit  for  the  use  of  the  organs 
where  it  travels,  in  forming  their  various  parts, 
secretions,  &c.  It  also  brings  back  with  it — 
at  least  a  few  hours  after  every  meal — a  mass 
of  chyle,  which  probably  needs  a  change  to 
be  effected  in  the  lungs,  before  it  can  become 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  245 

blood,  and  be  prepared  to  afford  nourishment 
to  the  system. 

Having  arrived  in  the  lungs,  it  is  spread, 
almost  immediately,  over  the  vast  space  which 
is  afforded  by  their  numerous  cells,  and  thus 
exposed  to  the  influence  of  the  atmospheric 
air.  This  produces  a  most  surprising  change ; 
and  the  blood  is  now  sent  back  into  the  left 
auricle  and  ventricle  of  the  heart,  to  be  dis- 
tributed all  over  the  system,  in  a  purified  or 
renovated  state.  Its  color  is  changed  to  a 
bright  scarlet ;  it  has  lost  its  superabundance 
of  carbon,  and  its  other  bad  qualities,  and  has 
acquired  new  life  and  vigor. 

Of  the  precise  nature  of  this  change,  whether 
the  blood  takes  in  something  from  the  air,  or 
whether  the  air  takes  something  away  from 
the  blood,  there  has  hitherto  been  a  great 
difference  of  opinion  ;  and  even  now,  the  point 
is  not  wholly  settled.  It  is  sufficient  for  us, 
in  a  book  like  this,  to  know  that  a  change 
does  take  place  ;  and  what  its  results  are,  in 
regard  to  health. 

NATURE  OF  THE  AIR. — I  must  not  pass 
over  this  part  of  my  subject,  without  mention- 


246  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

ing  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the  air 
which,  in  the  lungs,  comes  in  such  close  con- 
tact with  the  blood.  This  air,  in  its  natural 
and  most  fit  state  for  breathing,  consists  of 
about  80  parts  of  nitrogen  gas,  and  20  of 
oxygen  gas,  or  vital  air ;  *  though  some  say 
there  is  always  a  little  carbonic  acid  gas  mixed 
with  it,  even  in  its  purest  or  healthiest  state. 
But  no  sooner  is  it  breathed  over  in  the  lungs, 
even  once,  than  the  oxygen  is  greatly  dimin- 
ished, and  the  carbonic  acid  greatly  increased. 
If  we  breathe  the  same  air  over  two,  three  or 
more  times,  the  carbonic  acid  becomes  still 
more  abundant,  while  the  oxygen  as  rapidly 
diminishes. 

BREATHING  AIR  TWICE. — If  we  breathe 
air  twice  over,  or  if  we  breathe  that  which 
already  has  carbonic  acid  in  it,  derived  from 
some  other  source,  it  does  not  sufficiently 

*  Oxygen  gas  is  called  vital  air,  because  without  it, 
no  life,  or  vitality,  either  of  animals  or  vegetables,  can 
be  supported.  And  yet,  if  breathed  in  a  much  greater 
proportion  than  20  parts  in  100,  it  hurries  life  on,  and 
soon  destroys  it ;  just  as  food  and  drink  which  stimu- 
late us  too  much  hurry  us  on  too  fast,  and  in  that  way 
actually  shorten  our  lives. 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  247 

change  the  blood  from  its  black  to  its  scarlet 
color.  It  is  consequently  sent  back  to  the 
heart,  and  distributed  all  over  the  body,  in  a 
state  totally  unfit  for  the  purposes  for  which 
the  great  Creator  designed  and  gave  it ;  and 
if  this  abuse  is  long  permitted,  the  health 
suffers.  Instances  of  this  sort  are  quite  com- 
mon in  crowded  school  houses,  work  houses, 
prisons,  &c. 

The  air  is  changed,  by  breathing  it,  at  a 
most  astonishing  rate.  Probably  we  inhale — I 
speak  now  of  adults,  for  children  inhale  propor- 
tionally less — about  fifty  hogsheads  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  or  more  than  two  gallons  a  minute. 

It  is  proper  to  consider  air  which  has  been 
once  breathed,  as  unfit  for  further  respiration, 
or  spoiled.  Admitting  this  to  be  the  case, 
we  spoil  the  air  for  the  purposes  of  breathing, 
at  the  rate  of  more  than  a  gallon  a  minute. 
So,  in  fact,  Dr.  Franklin  used  to  say,  fifty 
years  ago  ;  and  so,  at  the  present  time,  say  all 
the  philosophers  and  physiologists. 

VENTILATION. — Now  if  these  things  are  so, 
now  careful  ought  we  to  be,  not  to  have  our 
rooms,  m  which  we  sit  or  sleep,  too  tight,  or 


248  THE    HOUSE    I   LIVE    IN. 

too  long  closed.  What  pains  ought  we  to  take 
to  ventilate  (purify)  them  often,  by  opening 
the  doors  or  the  windows.  This  is  the  more 
necessary  where  there  are  no  fires  ;  for  a  fire 
helps  to  ventilate  a  room,  by  causing  a  draught 
of  air  from  all  directions  towards  the  chimney; 
though  in  rooms  without  chimneys,  fires  are 
rather  dangerous,  since  they  increase  more 
rapidly  the  carbonic  acid,  and  other  poisonous 
gases.  You  have  probably  read,  in  the  news- 
papers, numerous  accounts  of  people  being 
found  dead  in  rooms  which  were  tight,  where 
they  had  been  burning  charcoal. 

How  dangerous  it  must  be  to  crowd  school 
rooms,  concert  rooms,  theatres,  churches,  &c., 
as  we  are  apt  to  do,  and  to  sit  for  a  long  time 
in  them,  without  proper  ventilation.  How 
easy  is  it  to  raise  a  window,  or  open  a  door 
And  though  we  might  thus  expose  an  indi- 
vidual, here  and  there,  to  take  cold,  how 
much  more  is  he  exposed  to  injury,  by  sitting 
in  and  breathing  the  bad  air. 

FREE  MOTION  OF  THE  LUNGS. — Not  only 
should  the  air  be  good  in  quality,  but  the 
lungs  should  have  free  play  in  inhaling  it. 


FURNITURE,    AND    ITS    USES.  249 

From  youth  to  maturity,  we  should  follow  no 
employment  which,  for  any  considerable  time, 
will  cramp  or  confine  their  motion.  Neither 
should  we  sit  or  stand  too  long  in  a  bad  posi- 
tion, as  young  people  are  apt  to  do,  in  schools 
and  factories.  Nor  should  our  dress  be  so  tight 
as  to  press  against  any  part  of  the  chest. 

TIGHT  LACING. — Health  is  always  injured 
by  every  kind  of  lacing,  as  well  as  by  stays, 
braces,  corsets,  tight  vests,  &c.  We  are  not 
only  more  exposed  to  colds,  pleurisies,  fevers 
and  consumptions,  but  also  to  diseases  and  bad 
formations  of  the  very  bones  themselves — the 
breast  bone,  the  spine  and  the  ribs.  I  say 
again,  therefore,  beware  of  anything  tight  about 
the  chest.  The  Prussian  physicians  recom- 
mend people  to  wear  no  cravat  or  stock,  and 
to  leave  their  bosoms  unbuttoned  and  bare ; 
and  no  people  in  the  same  climate,  and  under 
similar  circumstances  in  other  respects,  are 
more  free  from  consumptions  and  all  sorts  of 
diseases  of  the  lungs,  than  those  who  observe 
this  rule.  But  I  do  not  know  that  the  custom 
would  be  as  favorable  to  all  people,  in  all 
climates,  as  it  is  to  the  Prussians., 


250  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

It  is  very  strange  that  so  many  people — 
and  some  too  who  think  themselves  very  wise 
teachers — should  still  hold  to  the  idea  that 
moderately  tight  lacing  of  the  lungs  strength- 
ens them.  Mrs.  Phelps,  in  her  "  Lectures 
to  Young  Ladies,"  inculcates  this  erroneous 
idea,  and  so  do  a  few  other  writers.  It  is 
greatly  to  be  hoped  that  the  world  will  very 
soon  get  wiser  on  this  subject.  Few  of  those 
who  restrain  the  chest  have  as  handsome 
forms  as  the  natives  of  Turkey,  Georgia,  Cir- 
cassia,  Otaheite,  &c.,  where  the  females  are 
never  known  to  restrain  motion  by  any  sort 
of  dress. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  I  will  show  you  a 
picture  of  the  bones  of  two  human  chests, 


FURNITURE,   AND    ITS    USES.  251 

•which  have  been  accurately  copied  from  na- 
ture, one  of  which  is  in  its  perfect  state,  and 
the  other  has  been  injured  by  tight  lacing.  I 
need  not  remind  you  which  of  them  has  been 
injured  by  the  pressure  of  stays  ; — its  narrow, 
contracted  lower  part  will  at  once  show  you. 

I  ought  also  to  remark,  that  this  picture, 
according  to  the  statement  of  Dr.  Comstock, 
by  no  means  exaggerates  the  evil  effects  of 
tight  lacing.  He  says,  "  it  is  not  nearly  so 
great  as  we  believe  actually  takes  place  in 
many  instances  of  tight  lacing  ; "  and  I  be- 
lieve so  too. 

If  what  I  have  said  here  on  the  nature  and 
structure  of  the  chest,  should  lead  any  person 
to  study  the  structure  of  these  important 
organs,  the  lungs,  not  only  in  this  work,  but  in 
our  larger  treatises  on  Anatomy  and  Phys- 
iology, he  will  find  himself  most  amply  repaid 
for  his  labor,  and  will  forever  look  back  with 
satisfaction  to  the  day  in  which  his  attention 
was  arrested  and  his  mind  drawn  to  the  sub- 
ject. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


TEMPERATURE  OF  APARTMENTS. 

Remarks  on  temperature.     Curious  question.      Varia- 
tions of  temperature  considered. 

FEW  if  any  ordinary  buildings,  whether 
dwellings,  shops  or  factories,  are  so  constructed 
as  to  preserve  exactly  the  same  temperature 
in  every  apartment,  and  at  all  seasons  of  the 
year.  And  as  for  heating  themselves,  and 
preserving  a  uniform  temperature,  by  the  very 
employments  or  manufactures  which  are  going 
on  within  them,  nobody  probably  ever  heard 
of  such  a  thing.  A  self-heating  house  !  Why, 
it  would  excite  as  much  astonishment  as  would 
a  machine  which  should  really  have  the  power 
of  perpetual  motion. 

And  yet  the  house  I  live  in  has  this  power, 
wonderful  as  it  is,  of  not  only  heating  itself  by 
the  process  of  generating  and  purifying  blood, 
concerning  which  I  have  treated  at  length,  and 


TEMPERATURE  OF  APARTMENTS.   253 

by  other  curious  processes,  but  also  of  regulat- 
ing that  heat,  and  keeping  it  at  the  same  point, 
with  scarcely  any  perceptible  variation. 

The  heat  of  the  human  body  is  never  far 
from  98  D  of  Fahrenheit's  thermometer.  By 
this  we  mean,  that  if  you  were  to  plunge  the 
bulb  of  the  thermometer,  containing  the  mer- 
cury or  quicksilver,  into  the  flesh  of  the  body, 
or  even  hold  it  in  your  mouth,  the  mercury 
would  rise  in  the  tube  till  it  got  to  about  98 3, 
and  there  remain. 

Now  why  does  this  heat  continue  nearly 
the  same  at  all  times,  and  in  all  places  ?  If 
you  were  to  take  a  piece  of  wood  or  iron, 
about  the  size  and  shape  of  a  man,  heated  to 
98°,  and  set  it  up  in  Greenland  or  Lapland, 
where  it  is  so  cold  that  the  mercury  would 
sink  to  20°  below  zero,  in  the  open  air,  do 
you  think  this  iron  would  remain  heated  to 
98°  ?  Would  not  the  air  soon  cool  it  down 
to  about  20°  below  zero  ?  How  would  it  be 
with  a  man  of  wood  or  straw  ?  How  even 
with  the  body  of  a  dead  man  ? 

Does  any  one  suppose  that  the  body  of  a 
dead  man,  heated  about  as  hot  as  that  of  a 
living  man.  and  put  out  in  the  open  air  of 
32 


254  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Greenland,  would  remain  warm  very  long? 
Then  why  should  the  living  body  of  a  man  ? 
Why  does  not  the  cold  air  rob  it  of  its  spare 
heat,  just  as  it  would  a  mass  of  straw  or  iron  ? 
Yet  the  daily  experience  of  our  lives  proves 
that  it  does  not. 

The  skin,  and  the  outside  of  the  hands, 
face,  &c.,  may  be  cold,  and  sometimes  even 
frozen,  while  the  blood  and  flesh  will  gene- 
rally remain  about  as  warm  as  ever,  unless 
the  individual  actually  freezes  to  death.  In 
that  case,  the  heat  escapes  very  rapidly ;  and 
hence  the  dead,  as  you  know,  quickly  become 
cold. 

CURIOUS  QUESTION. — But  why  the  heat 
does  not  escape  from  everybody,  in  ordinary 
circumstances,  so  that  they  freeze  to  death,  is 
the  point  in  question.  You  will  not  suppose 
there  is  a  fire  somewhere  inside  of  us,  which 
keeps  up  the  heat  ;  for  if  so,  what  supplies 
the  fuel  ?  Who  ever  knew  of  any  wood  or 
coal  being  used  for  the  purpose  ?  Spirits 
will  burn,  it  is  true ;  but  those  people  who 
pour  enough  of  this  into  their  bodies  to  make 
quite  a  large  fire,  are  no  warmer  than  other 


TEMPERATURE  OF  APARTMENTS.   255 

people  :  nay,  they  are  even  colder  ;  for  the 
blood  of  the  drain  drinker  is  a  little  colder 
than  the  blood  of  the  man  who  drinks  nothing 
but  pure  water. 

When  we  think  of  all  this,  and  remember 
that  people  can  live  very  comfortably  in  cli- 
mates like  those  of  Labrador,  Greenland,  Nor- 
way, Lapland  and  Siberia,  where  everything 
around  them — air,  water,  earth,  stones,  &c. — 
is  cooled  down  to  less  than  half  the  heat  of 
the  human  body,  for  almost  all  the  year,  and 
to  many  degrees  below  the  freezing  point,  a 
part  of  the  time,  is  it  not  a  great  wonder  that 
all  our  bones,  and  flesh,  and  blood,  can  keep 
at  a  temperature  of  98°,  or  nearly  that,  not 
only  for  an  hour  or  a  day,  but  throughout  the 
whole  of  a  long  life  ? 

It  is  indeed  almost  a  miracle  ;  or  would  be 
thought  so,  if  we  thought  anything  about  it. 
It  shows,  at  least,  how  wonderful  life  is.  For 
not  only  man,  but  all  living  animals,  have  this 
same  power.  Birds  have  even  a  higher  de- 
gree of  heat  than  man.  The  blood  of  some 
of  them  rises  to  a  temperature  of  about  108°. 
If  it  were  not  so,  they  would  often  freeze  to 
death  in  the  cold  season. 


256  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

Living  trees  and  shrubs,  plants  and  seeds, 
have  this  same  power  of  resisting  cold,  though 
in  a  less  degree  than  animals  have.  Trees 
do  not  often  freeze  very  hard.  Were  it  not 
for  this  provision  of  the  great  Creator,  every- 
thing would  perish  in  the  winter ;  and  we 
should  have  no  beautiful  trees  and  green  fields 
in  the  spring,  as  seeds  and  roots  would  perish 
in  the  ground.  Besides,  if  spring,  with  its 
verdure,  should  return,  there  would  be  no 
men  and  other  animals  alive  to  enjoy  it. 

But  we  not  only  have  this  wonderful  power 
of  resisting  cold ;  we  are  also  equally  able  to 
resist  extreme  heat.  By  long  practice,  men 
havp  become  able  to  remain  in  ovens  and 
other  places,  heated  to  220°,  and  even  270° 
of  Fahrenheit,  for  ten  or  twelve  minutes  at  a 
time.  The  only  serious  inconvenience  which 
arises  in  such  cases  is  a  profuse  perspiration.* 

*  Perspiration  always  modifies  the  heat  of  the  human 
bodj  more  or  less,  and  is  one  means  of  keeping1  us 
cool.  The  reason  is,  that  the  moisture  on  the  surface 
of  our  bodies  evaporates ;  and  this  produces  cold.  It 
is  said  that  you  may  almost  freeze  a  man  in  midsummer, 
by  keeping  him  wet  with  ether;  so  rapidly  does  the 
ether  evaporate. 


TEMPERATURE  OF  APARTMENTS.   257 

But  a  piece  of  flesh  without  life  would,  in  ten 
minutes,  in  such  a  heat,  be  thoroughly  baked. 
Water  boils,  as  you  know,  at  212 3. 

VARIATIONS  OF  TEMPERATURE. — Infants, 
except  when  just  born,  have  a  temperature  of 
only  about  94°.  The  heat  increases,  as  we 
advance  towards  maturity,  after  which  it  re- 
mains nearly  stationary  at  about  98°,  until  we 
begin  to  decline,  when  it  slightly  diminishes. 
In  the  spring  and  the  beginning  of  summer,  it 
increases  a  little,  in  persons  of  every  age ;  but 
declines  again  towards  winter.  When  a  per- 
son is  greatly  enfeebled  by  sickness  or  other- 
wise, it  is  slightly  diminished.  In  fevers  and 
inflammatory  diseases,  it  sometimes  increases 
to  104°,  and  even  to  107°. 

But  I  have  not  yet  told  you  how  this  steady 
temperature  of  98°  is  kept  up  in  the  human 
system,  notwithstanding  the  extremes  of  heat 
and  cold.  Indeed  I  cannot  do  it ;  for  1  do 
not  know  the  cause.  I  have  already  told  you 
that  the  evaporation  of  the  matter  of  perspira- 
tion on  our  skins  has  some  effect  in  keeping 
us  cool ;  but  this  cannot  be  the  sole  cause 
why  men  can  remain  with  impunity  in  places 


258  THE    HOUSE    I    LIVE    IN. 

heated  to  a  greater  temperature  than  boiling 
heat.  There  must  be  other  causes,  not  yet 
fully  understood, 

As  to  the  reason  why  we  retain  so  high  a 
degree  of  heat  as  98°,  when  the  temperature 
of  the  atmosphere  is  almost  always  far  below 
that,  there  have  been  a  great  many  specula- 
tions— guesses — by  philosophers  ;  but  they 
have,  generally,  been  mere  guesses.  The 
process  of  digestion,  the  formation  of  chyle, 
the  change  of  chyle  into  blood,  and  the  change 
of  the  blood  in  the  lungs — especially  the 
latter — are  all  believed  to  have  a  part  in  the 
work.  Yet  they  do  not,  by  their  united  ef- 
forts, accomplish  one  half  of  it ;  and  it  remains 
for  future  anatomists  and  physiologists  to  in- 
vestigate the  subject  more  deeply.  Some 
suppose  that  electricity,  or  galvanism,  or  per- 
haps an  agent  much  more  subtle  still,  has 
something  to  do  in  the  matter. 

How  fir  the  laws  of  the  great  Creator  may 
ultimately  be  discovered,  in  this,  as  well  as  in 
a  thousand  other  things  of  which  we  are  yet 
ignorant,  it  is  not  easy  for  us,  in  the  present 
infancy  of  human  knowledge,  to  conjecture. 


DIFFICULT   TERMS   EXPLAINED. 


Abdomen,  the  lower  part  of  the  body,  containing  the 
stomach,  intestines,  &c. 

Absorb,  to  imbibe  or  suck  up. 

Absorbent,  a  vessel  which  absorbs  or  sucks  up. 

Acctabulum,  a  deep  socket  of  the  hip  joint. 

Alvco'ar  process,  the  projection  of  the  jaw  which  con- 
tains the  sockets  of  the  teeth. 

Anatomy,  the  study  of  the  human  body. 

Aqueous,  watery. 

Artery,  a  whitish  pipe,  which  carries  blood  from  the 
heart  out  into  all  parts  of  the  human  system. 

Atlas,  the  upper  vertebra  of  the  neck. 

Auditory  nerve,  the  nerve  of  the  ear. 

Auricle,  a  part  of  the  heart. 

Bleeps,  a  muscle  situated  on  the  upper  part  of  the  arm. 

Bile,  a  liquor  secreted  or  formed  by  the  liver. 

Capillary,  very  small ;  hair  sized. 

Capsular,  hollow,  like  a  chest  or  box. 

Cardiac,  belonging  to  the  heart. 

Carotid,  the  name  of  an  artery  of  the  neck,  which  car- 
ries blood  to  the  head. 

Carpus,  the  bones  of  the  wrist. 

Cartilage,  a  hard,  gristly  substance,  covering  the  enda 


260          DIFFICULT    TERMS    EXPLAINED. 

of  sonic  of  the  bones  to  prevent  their  wearing  too 

much 

Cataract,  a  disease  of  the  crystalline  lens  of  the  eye. 
Caul,  the  omentuiri.     (See  oinentum.) 
Cellular,  abounding  in  cells. 

Cerel*eHurn^  the  lower  and  smaller  part  of  the  brain. 
Cerebrum,  the  upper  and  larger  portion  of  the  brain. 
Cerumen,  the  ear-wax. 

Choroides,  one  of  the  coats  or  coverings  of  the  eye. 
Clujlc,  the  white  milky  fluid  formed  from  chyme. 
Chyme,  a  grayish  pulp  into  which   food  is  changed  in 

the  stomach  and  intestines. 
Clavicle,  the  collar  bone. 
Cochlea^  a  part  of  the  internal  ear. 
Ccccum,  a  portion  of  the  large  intestine. 
Coagulate.,  to  thicken  ;  to  become  curdled. 
Colon,  a  part  of  the  large  intestine. 
Cornea,  that  part  of  one  of  the  coverings  of  the  eye 

which  is  at  the  fore  part,  and  is  transparent,  like  the 

crystal  of  a  watch. 
Cranium,  that  part  of  the  bones  of  the  head  containing 

the  brains  ;  the  brain  case. 

Crystalline  lens,  a  small  internal  portion  of  the  eve. 
Cuticle,  the  scarf  skin ;  the  outside  layer  of  the  skin. 
Cutis  vera,  the  thick  or  principal  layer  of  the  skin  ;  the 

real  skin. 
Diaphragm,  the  thick,  membranous  floor  of  the  lungs, 

separating  them  from  the  contents  of  the  abdomen. 
Duct,  a  pipe  or  canal. 
Duodenum,  that  portion  of  the  intestine  that  is  next  to 

the  stomach. 
Dura  mater,  the  outside  membrane  or  covering  of  the 

brain 


DIFFICULT    TERMS    EXPLAINED.          261 

Enamel,  the  very  hard  outside  covering  of  the  teeth. 
Epiglottis,  a  little  clapper  or  valve  near  the  root  of  the 

tongue,  to  cover  the  top  of  the  windpipe. 
Fang,  a  root ;  the  root  of  a  tooth. 
Femur,  the  thigh  bone. 

Fibre,  a  thread-like  part  of  the  human  body. 
Fibrous,  consisting  of  fibres. 

Fibrinc,  a  thready  substance,  found  in  blood  and  lymph. 
Fibula,  one  of  the  bones  of  the  leg. 
Follicle,  a  little  hollow  gland. 
Gastric,  relating  to  the  stomach. 
Gelatine,  jelly. 
Gland,  a  thick  cluster  or  mass  of  blood-vessels,  nerves, 

<fcc.,  appearing  rather  fleshy,  as  the  salivary  glands. 

The  liver  is  but  a  very  large  gland. 
Glottis,  the  narrow  slit  or  opening  at  the  top  of  the 

windpipe,  covered  by  the  epiglottis. 
Humerus,  the  arm  bone  next  to  the  shoulder. 
Humor,  moisture. 

Hydrocephalus,  dropsy  of  the  brain. 
Incus,  one  of  the  small  bones  of  the  internal  ear. 
Iris,  a  part  of  the  eye. 
Jejunum,  the  part  of  the  intestines  next  beyond   the 

duodenum. 

Labyrinth,  a  part  of  the  internal  ear. 
Lachrymal  duct,  a  duct  in  the  upper  part  of  the  eye. 
Lactcals,  absorbent  vessels  which  carry  the  chyle. 
Larynx,  the  upper  part  of  the  windpipe. 
Ligament,  a  strong,  white,  flat  cord,  by  means  of  which 

the  bones  are  fastened  together. 
Liver,  a  large  gland  which  secretes  the  bile. 
Lungs,  the  organs  of  breathing. 
Lymph,  a  colorless  animal  fluid. 


262         DIFFICULT    TERMS    EXPLAINED. 

Lymphatic,  relating  to  the  lymph. 

Malleus,  one  of  the  small  bones  of  the  internal  ear. 

Mastication,  the  act  of  chewing. 

Membrane,  a  thin  substance  like  a  very  thin  skin. 

Mesentery,  a  membrane  in  the  abdomen,  to  which  the 

intestines  are  fastened. 

Metacarpus,  the  bones  of  the  palm  of  the  hand. 
Midriff,  the  diaphragm. 

Mucous,  forming  or  secreting  a  slimy  substance. 
Muscle,  a  bundle  of  lean   flesh;    the    instrument  of 

bodily  motion. 

Muscular,  composed  of  muscles. 
Myology,  the  study  of  the  muscles. 
Nerve,  a  prolongation  or  branch  from  the  brain. 
Olfactory  nerve,  the  nerve  of  smell. 
Omentum,  a  fatty  membrane  attached  to  the  stomach. 
Optic  nerve,  the  nerve  which  goes  to  the  eye. 
Organ,  a  part  performing  some  office  or  function. 
Osstfy,  to  become  bone. 
Osteology,  the  study  of  the  bones. 
Os  etfimoides,  a  part  of  the  skull. 
Osfrontis,  that  part  of  the  skull  which  forms  the  basis 

of  the  forehead. 

Os  hyoides,  a  small  bone  at  the  root  of  the  tongue. 
Os  occipitalis,  the  back  part  of  the  skull. 
Os  orbiculare.  a  small  bone  of  the  internal  ear. 
Os  temporis,  a  part  of  the  skull  near  the  ear. 
Os  sphenoides,  a  part  of  the  bottom  of  the  skull. 
Ossa  wormiana,  small  irregular  bones  sometimes  found 

in  the  skull. 

Palm,  the  hollow  or  concave  central  part  of  the  hand. 
Pancreas,  the  sweet  bread,  as  it  is  usually  called. 
Parietal  bone,  a  part  of  the  skull. 


DIFFICULT   TERMS    EXPLAINED.  263 

Parotid,  a  salivary  gland  near  the  ear. 

Patella,  the  knee  pan. 

Pelvis,  the  bones  of  the  lower  part  of  the  body. 

Periosteum,  a  tough  membrane  which  covers  the  bones. 

Perspiration,  the  vapor  of  the  human  body. 

Physiology,  the  study  of  the  living  human  body  and  its 

functions. 

Pia  mater,  one  of  the  coats  of  the  brain. 
Pigmentum  nigrum,  a  black  pigment  or  paint. 
Plica  polonica,  a  disease  of  the  hair,  common  in  Poland. 
Portia  dura,  a  branch  of  a  nerve  going  to  the  face. 
Portio  mollis,  the  auditory  nerve. 
Pylorus,  the  part  of  the  stomach  which  opens  into  the 

duodenum. 

Radius,  one  of  the  bones  of  the  arm  below  the  elbow. 
Rectum,  a  part  of  the  human  intestine. 
Rete  mucosum,  the  middle  membrane  of  the  skin ;  that 

in  which  the  color  is  found. 

Retina,  tlie  part  of  the  optic  nerve  which  is  in  the  eye. 
Sacrum,  a  strong  bone  of  the  lower  part  of  the  spine. 
Saliva,  the  natural  moisture  of  the  mouth. 
Scapula,  the  shoulder  blade. 
Sclerotica,  one  of  the  coats  of  the  eye. 
Sebaceous  glands,  small  glands,  containing  a  fatty  or 

oily  substance. 

Secrete,  to  form  or  make  from  the  blood. 
Secretion,  the  act  or  function  of  secreting. 
Serum,  the  watery  part  of  the  blood, 
Sesamoid,  small  bones  sometimes  found  in  the  joints  of 

the  thumb  and  largest  toe,  supposed  to  resemble  the 

seeds  of  the  sesamum,  a  plant. 
Skeleton,  a  collection  of  the  bones  of  the  human  body, 

fastened  together. 


264         DIFFICULT    TERMS    EXPLAINED. 

Skull,  the  bones  of  the  head. 

Spine,  the  back  bone. 

Stapes,  one  of  the  bones  of  the  ear. 

Sternum,  the  breast  bone. 

Sympathetic  nerve,  a  large  and   important  nerve,  not 

closely  connected  with  the  rest  of  the  nervous  system, 
Synovia,  a  liquor  prepared  by  nature  to  lubricate  the 

joints. 

Thoracic  duct,  a  large  duct  in  the  human  body. 
Tibia,  one  of  the  bones  of  the  leg. 
Tendon,  a  whitish  cord  by- which  muscles  are  usually 

fastened  to  bones. 
Tube,  a  hollow  vessel  or  pipe. 
Tunica,  a  coat,  or  covering,  or  shell. 
Tanica  arachnoidcs,  a  thin  covering  of  the  brain,  which 

has  been  supposed  to  resemble,  in  its  appearance,  a 

spider's  web. 

Tympanum,  the  drum  of  the  ear. 
Ulna,  one  of  the  bones  of  the  arm  below  the  elbow. 
Ureter,  a  pipe  or  tube  going  from  the  kidney  to  the 

bladder. 
Vacuum,  an  empty  space — a  space  in  which  not  even 

air  is  found. 

Valve,  a  thin  membrane. 
Vein,  a  vessel  which  brings  back  blood  from  any  part 

of  the  body  to  the  heart. 

Vena  cavce,  two  great  veins,  opening  into  the  heart. 
Ventricle,  a  part  of  the  heart. 
Vertebra,  one  of  the  short  portions  of  which  the  spine 

or  back  bone  is  composed. 
Vestibule,  a  part  of  the  internal  ear. 
Vitreous,  glassy,  or  resembling  glass. 


VALUABLE   WORKS 

PUBLISHED    BY 

GE.OIRIGE  W.  LIGHT, 

1  COPvNHILL,  BOSTON. 


The  strong  approbation  w|||fa  the  following  works 
have  met  with  where  they  are  known,  has  induced  the 
Publisher  to  commence  stereotyping  them,  and  to  take 
efficient  measures  for  their  circulation  in  all  parts  of  the 
country. 

THE   YOUNG   HUSBAND, 

OR 

DUTIES  OF  MAN  IN  THE  MARRIAGE  RELATION. 

Third  Stereotype  Edition. 

Embellished  by  an  elegant  Steel  Engraving, 

BY  DR.  WM.  A.  ALCOTT. 

This  work  is  a  continuation  of  the  scries  of  Family  Books  to 
which  the  Young  Wife,  Young1  Housekeeper  and  Young-  Mother 
belong— a  series  which  Dr.  A.  has  been  many  years  meditating 
and  preparing,  and  on  which  he  has  spared  no  pains.  He  takes 
the  ground  that  man,  though  less  efficient  in  the  formation  of  early 
character  than  woman,  is  nevertheless,  as  a  husband,  indispensably 
necessary  to  its  highest  perfection  ;  and  in  this  view  presents,  in  a 
popular  manner,  his  various  duties  in  this  most  interesting  and  im- 
portant relation — not  only  as  a  social,  but  as  an  intellectual  and 
moral  agent — not  only  to  his  family,  but  in  reference  to  the  com- 
munity at  large.  He  would  especially  encourage  in  the  Young 
Husband  a  more  exalted  aim — better  becoming  a  rational  man  and 
a  Christian — than  that  of  merely  living  in  the  woild  uninjured  and 
uuinjuring. 


2  GEORGE    W.  LIGHT  S    PUBLICATIONS 

The  following  are  a  few  of  the  subjects  treated  upon  : 
Choice  of  Occupation  5  Mistakes  in  getting  a  Wife  ;  Place  of 
Residence ;  City  and  Country  compared  ;  House  and  Furniture  ', 
Living  by  System  ;  Morning  Duties  ;  Leisure  Hours  ;  Evenings  at 
Home  ;  Evening  Reviews  5  Improvement  by  Conversation  ;  Let- 
ter-writing and  Composition  ;  Keeping  a  Journal  ;  Periodical  Pub- 
lications j  Books  and  Study  ;  Domestic  Economy  ;  The  art  of  Ed- 
ucating 5  Novel  Reading  ;  The  Sabbath  5  Sunday  Dinners  ;  Sunday 
Visiting  ;  Particular  Friends  j  Relatives  ;  Importance  of  cultivating 
our  Social  Nature  ;  Contests  for  Superiority  ;  How  Quarrels  may 
be  avoided  ;  Love;  Fawning  5  Familiarity;  Delicacy  and  Purity; 
Art  of  Patience  ;  Giving  Pain  to  a  Wife  ;  Jealousy  a'nd  Suspicion  5 
Teasing  and  Scolding;  Fault  Finding;  Keeping  Cool;  Cheerful- 
ness ;  Confidence  and  Reserve  ;  Giving  Presents  ;  Jokes  and  Puns  ; 
Dalliance  ;  Revealing  Secrets;  Value  of  Discretion  ;  Taking  Sides; 
Decision  ;  Charities — Giving  at  Hap-Hazard  ;  Conjugal  Servitude  j 
Dress  and  Appearance;  Health;  Sickness  and  Medicine;  Duties 
to  the  Dead — Mourning  &c.j  Occasional  Duties'—Critical  Periods, 
&c. 

"  For  those  who  have  recently  entered  the  matrimonial  statr,  or  for 
those  who  intend  entering  it,  we  know  not  where  they  can,  el-e\vhere, 
obtain  so  much  useful  information  respecting  their  duty  and  obligation*  in 
that  interesting  relation,  as  in  to  be  had  for  a  more  trifle  in  this  volume."-- 
[MASS.  SPY.] 


THE   YOUNG  WIFE, 

OR 

DUTIES  OF  WOMAN  IN  THE  MARRIAGE  RELATION. 

Seventh  Stereotype  Edition. 
Embellished  by  a  beautiful  $teel  Plate  and   Vignette. 

BY  DR.  VVM.  A.  ALCOTT. 

This  work  is  based  on  the  principle,  that  the, great  business  of 
the  wife  is  Education — the  education  of  herself  and  her  family.  It 
therefore  exhibits  the  duties  of  a  wife,  especially  to  her  husband,  in 
a  manner  at  once  original  and  striking.  The  author  presupposes 
her  to  hare  set  out  in  matrimony  with  Christian  principles  and 
purposesj  and  hence  proceeds  to  inculcate  what  he  deems  the 
best  methods  of  applying  them  in  the  routine  of  daily  life  and 
conversation.  We  believe  that  no  one  can  rise  from  the  perusal 
of  this  volume  without  a  higher  respect  for  female  character,  a* 
well  as  a  higher  confidence  in  th«  divine  wisdom  of  matrimony. 


ON    HEALTH,   DOMESTIC    DUTIES;  ETC. 


THE  YOUNG  HOUSE-KEEPER, 

OR 

THOUGHTS  ON  FOOD  AND  COOKERY/ 

Fourth  Stereotype  Edition. 
BY  DR.  WM.  A.  ALCOTT. 

The  grand  object  of  this  work  is,  to  promote  physical  and  moral 
education.  In  this  view  it  aims  to  render  the  maternal  house-keeper 
intelligent,  rather  than  mechanical.  It  treats  of  most  of  the  various 
kinds  of  food,  both  animal  and  vegetable,  in  common  use,  and  of 
the  most  simple  and  rational  modes  of 'preparing  them.  And  in 
presenting  what  are  claimed  to  be  iqtprored  views  or  modes  of 
cookery,  it  gives  reasons  why  they  are  so.  It  shows  that  a  large 
amount  of  time  now  devoted  to  the  preparation  of  food  and  drink, 
is  worse  than  wasted,  andfthat  this  time  ought  to  be  and  must  be 
redeemed,  and  applied  by  the  house-keeper  herself  to  the  physical, 
moral  and  social  improvement  of  her  family.  It  is  believed  that 
this  Manual  will  save  at  least  one  hundred  dollars  a  year  to  every 
large  family,  which  may  be  devoted  to  other  and  nobler  purposes 
th^n  mere  indulgence  of  appetite. 

It  includes  the  Dignity  of  House-ke»p5ng;  First  Principles  of 
the  House-keeper  ;  Having  a  Plan  :  Keeping  Accounts  ;  Keeping 
a  Journal ;  Nature,  Character  and  Modes  of  preparing  the  princi- 
pal kinds  of  food  produced  from  Farinaceous  vegetables,  as  wheat, 
rye,  Indian  corn,  peas,  beans,  rice,  &c.,  on  which  subjects  there 
fire  from  twenty  to  thirty  chapters  ;  from  twenty  to  thirty  chapters 
on  fruits,  &c.,  and  the  modes  of  preparing  or  using  them  as  food  ; 
several  chapters  on  milk,  butler,  cheese,  eggs,  flesh  and  fish  ;  th« 
customs  and  fashions  of  ccokery  as  it  has  been  and  now  is  -,  esti- 
mates on  the  present  waste  in  families ;  Cooking  as  it  should  be  ; 
how  to  begin  the  work  of  reform  in  cookery  ;  a  chapter  of  Recipes 
for  preparing  food,  especially  vegetables  and  fruit,  on  rational  and 
simple  principles  ;  with  several  other  important  subjects. 

The  following  are  from  the  many  favorable  notices  of  this  work 
which  have  already  appeared  : 

"The  author  of  this  work  maybe  styled  the  Young  Ladies'  Friend. 
No  writer  has  labored  more  in  their  beh.Vlf  than  Dr.  Aleott.  It  is  repletn 
with  sound  practical  sense — full  of  useful,  nay,  invaluable  hints — just  such 
n  book,  in  fact,  as  every  lady,  whether  rich  or  poor,  should  have  in  her 
hand*." — PORTLAND  TRANSCRIPT. 


4  GEORGE    W.  LIGHT'S    PUBLICATIONS 

THE   YOUNG  MOTHER, 

OR 

THE  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION  OF  CHILDREN. 

Seventh  Edition — Embellished  by  a  Vignette. 
BY  DR.  WM.  A.  ALCOTT. 

The  "  Young-  Mother  "  is  designed  as  an  every-day  manual  for 
those  who  are  desirous  of  conducting  the  physical  education  of  lire 
young — from  the  very  first — on  such  principles  as  Physiology  and 
Chemistry  indicate.  It  inculcates  the  great  importance  of  pre- 
venting evil — especially  physical  evil — by  implanting  good  habit*. 
We  believe  it  to  be  the  only  work  of  a  popular  character,  written 
by  a  medical  man,  on  this  subject,  and  that  it  is,  on  this  account, 
doubly  valuable.  It  is  recommended  by  the  Boston  Medical  and 
Surgical  Journal,  and  by  the  Press  generally,  as  a  work  which 
should  be  possessed  by  every  family. 

The  following  is  a  brief  synopsis  of  the  Contents  : 
The  Nursery.  Temperature  of  the  Nursery.  Ventilation  of  the 
Nursery.  The  Child's  Dress  5  Swathing  the  Body  ;  Form  of  the 
Dress;  Material  of  Dress;  Quantity  of  Dress  3  Caps;  Hats  and 
Bonnets;  Covering  for  the  Feet;  Pins;  Remaining  Wet;  Remarks 
on  the  Dress  of  Boys ;  on  the  Dress  of  Girls.  Cleanliness.  Bath- 
ing. Food  ;  Nursing — how  often  ;  Quantity  of  Food  ;  How  long 
should  Milk  be  the  only  Food  ?  On  Feeding  before  Teething ;  From 
Teething  to  Weaning ;  During  the  Process  of  Weaning ;  Food 
subsequently  to  Weaning1;  Remarks  on  Fruit;  Confectionary; 
Pastry  ;  Crude,  or  Raw  Substances.  Drinks.  Giving  Medicine. 
Exercise — Hocking  in  the  Cradle ;  Carrying  in  the  Arms;  Crawt- 
ing;  Walking;  Riding  in  Carriages;  Riding  on  Horseback. 
Amusements.  Crying.  Laughing.  Sleep — Hour  for  Repose  ; 
Place  for  Repose  ;  Purity  of  the  Air  ;  The  Bed  ;  The  Covering  ; 
Night  Dresses  ;  Posture  of  the  Body  ;  State  of  the  Mind  ;  Quality 
of  Sleep ;  Quantity  of  Sleep.  Early  Rising1.  Hardening1  the 
Constitution.  Society.  Employments/  Education  of  the  Senses — 
Hearing — Seeing — Tasting  and  Smelling — Feeling.  Abuses. 

The  Novr  York  Y.  M.  Advocate  says — "  This  neatly  bound  and  well 
printed  hook  should  he  in  possession  of  all  mothers,  and  especially  the 
youne.  It  will  undoubtedly  meet  with  a  rapid  sale,  and  he  extensively 
useful." 

O"  Copies  bound  in  extra  style  for  Presents. 


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